★★★☆☆
Knowing his crow-like visage would never do for pin-up material, in the early 1970s Alice Cooper instead set himself up as rock’s premier villain, singing about gore and death while performing Grand Guignol-style shows that culminated in his getting guillotined or hanged (almost for real, on a few perilous occasions).
Over the years word got out that Cooper is actually one of the nicest guys in music and the brooding menace of early hits I’m Eighteen and School’s Out, which inspired a BBC ban and a one-woman campaign against Cooper by Mary Whitehouse, gave way to camp theatricality.
That is certainly the case on his latest album. These tales of paranormal activities and paranoiac personalities are about as scary as a primary school production of Phantom of the Opera. But with long-term producer Bob Ezrin on board, alongside ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons on guitar, Paranormal has one great rock song after another, each filled with crunchy hooks, radio-friendly choruses and musical theatre-style bombast. It belongs to an endless adolescent summer of horror movies and hot rods; silly but fun. (Earmusic)