World wary

Brutal Planet - Alice Cooper (2000)

Here's a great album for those days when you just want to kick the world in the nuts. It rocks hard, plain and simple.

The album in one word: Heavy. That applies musically and thematically. Brutal Planet takes that proverbial cold, hard look at many of the things that people are not comfortable taking a cold, hard look at: hate, hunger, abuse, alienation; those parts of our humanity, both personally and as a race, that we'd rather not admit to.

While heavy, this album is never burdensome, however. Somehow Alice Cooper manages to keep his trademark sense of humour, as gallows as it may be, to, if not quite lighten his subject matter, then at least help us navigate the darkness. Still, it's certainly a precarious tightrope and, honestly, I don't know how in cheek his tongue may be this time around. Most often it seems pointed straight out.

As soon as the guitars start chugging to open the album, and the vocals begin with "We're spinning round on this ball of hate", you know this isn't going to be a leisurely frolic through a sunny park. The lyrics on this album hit as hard as the riffs. The opening title track, (90/100), laments our fall from Eden into a harsh history of war, pain and death. It doesn't get much heavier than "Right here is where we hung him upon an ugly cross/ Over there we filled the ovens, right here the holocaust".

Sadly, chill-inducing inhumanity of that level didn't pass away in 1945, as "Wicked Young Man", (75), attests to. Written from the point of view of a neo-Nazi who "never ever sleep[s]" but "just lay[s] in ... bed/ Dreaming of the day when everyone is dead", hatred fuels violence to this day. This "vicious young man", though, doesn't lay any blame for his rage on society and its movies or music, rather on just his own depraved soul.

"Sanctuary", (93), is a great song, with its explosive chorus, "Go A - Way!" The slow crawl to death via the mundanity of rat-race existence and its ultimate effect of pushing people further and further apart is examined here under Cooper's satiric eye. Perhaps a heavy metal answer to the late Hank Cochran's "Make The World Go Away", (1963).

The bullets fly in "Blow Me A Kiss", (86), a song with great-sounding background response vocals on the verses. This could be an anthem for the alienated who would rather die than face another brutal day on said-same world.

The oft-rendered, but no less tragic, juxtaposition of the gluttony of the western world with the fatal hunger of the third world provides the canvas for "Eat Some More", (79). The lyrics bring to mind Bob Dylan's classic, "People starving and thirsting, grain elevators are bursting/ Oh you know it costs more to store the food than it do to give it" from "Slow Train" (1979), while grinding guitars give it a flavour all its own. Sub-titled "Taste The Pain" in some media, it's kind of a sonic equivalent to Morgan Spurlock's 2004 documentary, Super Size Me, as a good listen to the lyrics may cause appetite loss.

I don't know what "Pick Up The Bones", (94), is about, but it's awesome in its bizarre and dark imagery. It begins, "Collecting pieces of my family in an old pillowcase" and goes down the shadowy rabbit hole from there.

"Pessi-Mystic", (93), manages to encapsulate the album's great dichotomy in being at once funny and disturbing in how close to home it cuts. What I find oddest about this song, however, is that it may be directing its venom towards the very people who would be most interested in an album like this.

"Gimme", (88), continues the contagious riffing and frightening narration: "Don't you deserve to have it all? ... Everything has a price ..."

What makes Alice Cooper angry? "It's The Little Things", (75), which strikes me as almost too cute with its less subtle humour and self-referential chorus: "Welcome to my nightmare/ No more Mister Nice Guy". It's still a solid rocker, though, followed by what may be the album's strongest track.

"Take It Like A Woman," (95),(http://www.mediafire.com/?0u19mx3pkqy71o1), is Alice's latest ironically-titled tribute to the most-assuredly stronger sex, a la "Only Women Bleed". The strings on the chorus only elevate this already-awesome ballad to the wonderverse.

The guitars are back in full force for the album's closer, "Cold Machines", (77), a final reminder of the space between us all.

The Japanese edition also features a track with one of the best titles I've ever seen: "Can't Sleep, Clowns Will Eat Me", (79), (http://www.mediafire.com/?bx0gey82xubh3ws). It's a fairly straightforward rocker, though not quite as hard as anything on the album proper. It finally saw the light of day in North America on the Dragontown Special Edition in 2002.

The 2001 Tour Edition of Brutal Planet also features four live bonus tracks: "Little Things" and "Wicked" from this album, each a fine performance, but in my opinion, the main draw of Alice live is visual. There's also a rocking, raspy, can't-reach-the-high-notes-anymore version of "Poison", (the original of which appeared on 1990's Trash) and an aborted version of The Who's "My Generation", which, clocking in at a minute-and-a-half, simply begs the question, "Why?"

Brutal Planet (album): 86/100