Alice Cooper - Breadcrumbs (2019)
I'm going to be a bit different with this review, normally I don't review EP releases, but this was a request, so I agreed to do it for this reason. Cooper announced a Sept. 13 release for this six-song EP drawn from sessions with producer Bob Ezrin. He started recording the songs, which pay homage to the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer's Motor City hometown, in Detroit during March and continued in Los Angeles. This session pulls from a lot of Alice's early inspirations and really feels like a labor of love to the Detroit area, and not a slapped together collection of covers to satiate the fans until his next full length.
Alice opens with two original tunes. “Detroit City 2020”(which is a reworking of a previous Cooper release)is an anthem that rivals KISS’s “Detroit Rock City,” but it does have its own tinges of Kid Rock. “Go Man Go” is the closest to punk that Alice has ever sounded, and nods to the proto-punk bands MC5, The Stooges, and Death (not the early death metal band from florida).
Alice then launches into a string of covers from Detroit’s peak years of hard rock from 1965 to 1975. First is the garage rock sound of the mid-60s that would inspire Furnier and his friends to form The Spiders in Phoenix. “East Side Story” is a song written by Bob Seger for his band The Last Heard in 1966. Seger’s (great) original features the organ (probably the Farfisa?) paired with a fuzz guitar. Alice and his companions were more apt to use digital distortion, and the organ is missing.
A cover of Suzy Quatro’s “Your Mamma Won’t Like Me” from 1975 is next. Again, Alice tries to remain true to the original. Yet guitarist Wayne Kramer opted for the wah-wah pedal instead of the clavinet in Quatro’s original. That clavinet seems to be a nod to Stevie Wonder’s 1972 hit “Superstition,” by the way.
Next is a jazz-lounge interpretation of “Devil with a Blue Dress On,” made popular by Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels in 1966. It’s a fun, fresh take on the classic. Alice departs from the original medley of “Good Golly Miss Molly”; he replaces it with “Chains of Love” by J.J. Barnes. Barnes’s original is an example of the Motown-esque funk in the late ‘60s, and it’s great. Cooper’s “Chains of Love” blends well with “Devil with a Blue Dress On,” but it fails to hit as hard as Barnes had.
Finally, Cooper and his companions close with “Sister Anne,” a 1971 song by the MC5. Wayne Kramer, guitarist for the MC5, plays on this EP, and the song is all too familiar to him. This is the one cover on this album that blows away the original. It has a fuller sound, a tighter groove, and the guitars sound so much crisper. It is a great finish to this hard-driving album.
Alice’s decision to included legendary Detroit musicians was also impressive. The MC5’s Kramer handles the guitar chops, as does Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad (out of nearby Flint, MI). Detroit Wheels drummer Johnny “Bee” Badanjek sits behind the kit, and Detroit-based garage enthusiast Mick Collins plays bass. It’s a great lineup of talented musicians invested in the Motor City sound.
Overall, the album is a welcome return to form. It’s one of Alice’s best outputs in a while, and superior to the Hollywood Vampires. His choice to celebrate Detroit’s musical heritage is on point. Given that rock and roll appears to be in steep decline these days, it is refreshing to hear hard-hitting rock and roll pulling off the factory floor.
In short this is a welcome release for fans of Alice and maybe even fans of classic rock and roll in general. It never pushes too far away from its intended purpose and delivers a solid listening experience. I have no complaints with this one.
Score: 4.5/5
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