Alice is going back to the future with his latest album a sequel to his 1975 concept album Welcome to My Nightmare.
A lot has changed in the last 35 years, Alice as much as anything. Constantly evolving as musical tastes change, so a reprise of an earlier album was going to be interesting.
Alice’s alter-ego Steven gets another outing, with his haunting piano theme introducing the album and his rythmic muttering on “The Nightmare returns”
“Caffine” and “I’ll Bite Your Face Off” are typical Alice crowd pleasers, I’m guessing the latter will become a staple of the live shows.
“The Last Man On Earth”, is a strutting top hat and cane song in the same ilk as “Some Things” whilst “The Congregation” has a touch of Ozzy Osbourne vocal and Marilyn Manson beat about it.
“Disco Bloodbath Boogie Fever” somehow reminds me of Lordi while also managing to be completely different from anything that they’ve done, followed by “Ghouls Gone Wild” a Lordi song title if ever I heard one which turns out to be homage to Alice’s surf-song origins (With maybe a touch of Weird Al).
In some ways, this album is “Greatest Hits” of songs he’s never written before. Each song somehow harkening back to an earlier incarnation of everybody’s favourite anti-hero, whilst still being new and fresh.
Funny thing is, all the elements are there but it just doesn’t quite gel with me yet. Not to say that this won’t become a favourite, but like quite a few of Alice’s albums it takes a while for them to mature like a fine wine.
