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The last time the original\u00a0Alice Cooper Group<\/a>\u00a0played together on a full album, they had logged the last of their three straight Top 10 LPs with 1973’s Muscle of Love<\/a><\/em>. In 1975, after one final show the previous year, singer Vincent Furnier legally changed his name to\u00a0Alice Cooper<\/a>\u00a0and began a solo career that\u00a0yielded\u00a0another Top 10 album.<\/p>\n The original band, consisting of Cooper, guitarist Michael Bruce, bassist Dennis Dunaway and drummer Neal Smith, reunited\u00a0at a 1999 tribute for guitarist Glen Buxton, who died in 1997. Songs by the reunited group appeared on Cooper’s 2011 album\u00a0Welcome 2 My Nightmare<\/a><\/em>, 2017’s Paranormal<\/em> and 2021’s Detroit Stories<\/em>, with the latter sparking full-fledged reunion talk, resulting in The Revenge of Alice Cooper<\/em>.<\/p>\n That album, 52 years after their last one together,\u00a0extends the musical bedrock of Cooper’s previous LP, 2023’s The Road<\/a><\/em>,\u00a0one of\u00a0his most focused and confident works since his mid-’70s prime.\u00a0The Revenge of Alice Cooper<\/em>\u00a0sounds like a homecoming, but just as often it reignites the group’s passion for arena-made heavy rock.\u00a0(Buxton even appears ghost-like in “What Happened to You” via an unreleased recording.) In their effort to replicate the past, however, some\u00a0of it can’t help but feel a bit strained.<\/p>\n READ MORE:<\/strong> More 2025 Album Reviews<\/a><\/p>\n Produced by Bob Ezrin<\/a>, whose association with the band goes back to 1971’s Love It to Death<\/a><\/em>, the album appropriates all the signposts of classic Alice Cooper material \u2014 from guitar riffs that immediately set songs’ settings to lyrics that lean darkly toward horror\u00a0\u2014\u00a0for a reunion that\u00a0serves as a victory lap\u00a0after more than 50 years away. The\u00a0opening track,\u00a0“Black Mamba,” begins with 40 seconds of spoken-word scene-laying by Cooper before slinky guitar coils its way throughout the song. The rest of the LP follows suit.<\/p>\n The self-mythologizing “Wild Ones,” “Ballad of Dwight Fry” companion “Kill the Flies,” the psychedelic swirl of “Blood on the Sun” and others evoke the group’s past, either directly or indirectly.\u00a0Cooper’s late-night shocks can sound tame\u00a0next to\u00a0modern-day real horrors; wisely, these occasions are played for smirks rather than\u00a0scares.\u00a0Better are the album’s more sincere moments, such as the catchy “Money Screams” (which includes a “Billion Dollar Babies” reprise at the fade-out). In the album’s touching closer, “See You on the Other Side,” Cooper sings, “I know someday we’re gonna play together again<\/em>.” It’s a fitting end to\u00a0The Revenge of Alice Cooper<\/em>, a tribute to the past, Buxton and most of all themselves. After 52 years, they deserve it.<\/p>\n Classic artists, new bands and returning favorites mark the year’s best releases.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Gallery Credit: Michael Gallucci<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nTop 15 Rock Albums of 2025 (So Far)<\/h2>\n