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Alice Cooper, Along Came A Spider

Golf addict Alice Cooper has dragged himself away from the fairway just long enough to make his 25th album and re-establish his shock rock roots. Revolving around the comic book crimes of a serial killer called Spider, who cuts off one leg from each of his female victims then binds their bodies in silk, it's as close to his 70s heyday as Cooper has come in decades, the metal guitars glinting against a wash of soaring pop choruses. His snarl and sneer intact, Cooper stalks the streets for prey in I Know Where You Live and The One That Got Away, though power ballads Killed By Love and Salvation are infinitely more scary. Some songs, like I'm Hungry, are laudably silly, others simply bland, but with a little help from Ozzy Osbourne and Slash, who adds glitzy embellishments to the heavy, anthemic Vengeance Is Mine, Cooper's back on par.