Alice Cooper - The Last Temptation
Epic Records - 1994
9/10
Possibly the most unplaceable album by Alice Cooper, The Last Temptation is the weird example that hardly fits in with any era. While not completely stepping out of the Hey Stoopid mindset, it’s nothing I would call glam at all. Yet, it’s too far removed from the modern rock era that would follow. What does that leave us? An honest, down to Earth, rock ‘n roll album! This would also confirm the beginning of the trend of only doing a couple albums per decade, instead of filling nearly the entire decade, a common (and necessary) trick in an artist’s later years.
As a musician that tends to blend in well with contemporary styles, it’s surprising that The Last Temptation doesn’t have a glaring grunge presence. But frankly, save for featuring Chris Cornell on “Stolen Prayer” and the Alice In Chains-adjacent dinginess of “You’re My Temptation,” it’s not really present. In fact, if anything, songs like the latter, and perhaps “Unholy War” feel more doom oriented than anything. Thicker, distorted guitars dominate both tracks. Even “Cleansed By Fire” allows things to finish with an eerier stomp in this vein.
But the rest of this is very much the opposite. Warmer, or perhaps soothing rock numbers fill in the other half. Opener “Sideshow” is a favorite of mine, oozing in with the classic poetic structures and welcoming musicianship, whilst upholding a cheap horror presence. Others like “It’s Me” hearken back to the classic ballad structure, maybe the last breath of the glam era. The aforementioned “Stolen Prayer” is a wonderful display of acoustic progression into a heavier chorus with wonderful vocal tradeoffs.
For a disc that seems so hard to pin down, it’s executed wonderfully. The only thing I can really complain about is the sheer glaring ridiculousness of “Lost In America,” but even that one still has me humming along. Otherwise, this is a record that’s rather bittersweet. Being a fan who was born a year after it came out, looking back, I can’t help but see everything following it be a new “hit or miss” era, with noticeable decline in momentum coming with age. If nothing else, see this as a bookend to what we could call “classics.”
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