Wednesday 13

It’s alive!

Finally, the album upon which the former Frankenstein Drag Queen From Planet 13 in chief delivers his defining masterpiece. Accusing America’s favourite ghoul scout (known to the IRS as Joseph Michael Poole) of maturing is possibly an allegation too far, but his 27-year quest to construct a compendium of EC Comics ‘n’ cheese-before-bedtime-fuelled frightmares, R-Rated, shlocky horror creature features and Cooper-informed, rotted-tongue in-festered-cheek, gore-gargling, metal-spiked, hi-octane splatterglam into a mainstreamseducing mega-rock monster appears to have reached its ultimate incarnation.

Here, then, is Necrophaze, a 12-track creation more than capable of raising itself from the slab to terrorise the local townspeople and, very probably, perform Putting On The Ritz as an encore. With guest appearances from Stone Sour’s Ray Moryaga, Cristina Scabbia of Lacuna Coil and others, not least Alice Cooper himself, in something of a Vincent Price role, Necrophaze echoes AC’s Frankensteinfeeding metal era, reanimates classic 80s tropes with lightning bolts of contemporary ‘Knot ferocity. Spooky, ooky keyboard washes, serial killers, hatchets, broad cinematic dynamics, assured performances and Wednesday himself: the complete beast at last, in his element and never better. ■■■■■■■■■■