Brutal Planet

Nowhere near as dire as you’d fear, Alice Cooper’s latest, Brutal Planet, finds our hero spinning characteristically grim fables as his backing band gamely grinds out old-school hard rock and metal clichés. There’s nothing close to ”Eighteen” or ”School’s Out” here, but tracks like ”It’s the Little Things” prove AC is one of the few fogies who can make this shameless self-pastiche palatable. B-