This is billed as the third album in a trilogy. Let's see what ground the Doctor of Shock has covered thus far: The Last Temptation reveals that there really is a devil and he's lost his grip on this singer. Brutal Planet delves into the depravity of man, acknowledging our sins as humanity. Dragontown continues this descent into the hellish bent of mankind, a place that amplifies badness and slime reproduces itself with decay. It's entertaining, but it's also very telling. Like C.S. Lewis, Alice Cooper grabs the devil's microphone and attempts to spill his guts and reveal his wicked schemes. As a former victim of rock and roll's excesses, prior to his quite literal salvation, Alice has earned the right to take the shots he does at a certain bygone rock star (in "Disgraceland"). The truth is told without pulling punches for the squeamish. Take Proverbs 5 and translate it into Vegas terms, and you might have "Sex, Death and Money." The lyrics to "The Sentinel" are timely: "...home, home on deranged..." and "there's somethin' disturbin' goin' on in my turban . . . I'm tired and I'm wired here to blow." Unflinching, yet witty and pensive simultaneously. A hundred Christian metal bands from the 80s would have loved to have penned the lyrics to "It's Much Too Late." I haven't heard this kind of preaching about Hell in I don't know how long: "The road to Hell is littered with nice guys with good intentions / but once you're there, you're there / It's much too late." It's not just hellfire and brimstone, it's unrestrained truth. Musically, I thought Brutal Planet was a triumphant return to his glory days of Billion Dollar Babies, but Dragontown steps back and fools around with genres and offers the kind of variety we haven't seen since From The Inside (one of my favs). It takes a lot for an old rocker to claim relevancy, but the Coop's done it.
Similar sounding releases
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1994MortalWake
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