With Alice Cooper on the verge of bringing his brand of onstage insanity back to Rockford's On The Waterfront festival, it seems a great time to have a look at his latest album, The Eyes of Alice Cooper. While the disc is not the best that the former Mr. Furnier (Cooper was born Vincent Furnier) has ever produced, there are some good songs, and it actually contains one of the spookiest ever from him.

Alice Cooper has never been the most consistent artist. When he has it right he is brilliant. Works like "Welcome To My Nightmare", "Love it to Death" and, most recently "Brutal Planet" are prime examples. Sometimes he falls extremely flat - "Trash", "Zipper Catches Skin" and "Muscle of Love" being discs that fall into this category. More often than not he wanders somewhere in between with moments of brilliance on the album separated by more banal material. Many times the weakness comes from when he follows recent trends in music far too closely. Such is the case with this album.

On "The Eyes of Alice Cooper", the make-upped one seems to be trying to hard to capitalize on the success of the recent garage band craze highlighted by bands like The White Stripes. Most of the album falls into this sort of arena. It is not bad material, just quite basic, and lacking that trademark twisted Alice charm. The last disc, "Dragon Town" was definitely not up to the brilliant "Brutal Planet" that it followed, but it had a lot more going for it than this one. In fact, this one really only has two standout cuts. The first is called "This House Is Haunted" and features the patented Cooper creepiness. It is probably one of the cooler cuts the man has ever produced. The other is "The Song That Didn't Rhyme". Musically, this one is interesting, if a bit basic, but the lyrics really put it over the top. There is only one real dog on the disc, the overly syrupy ballad "Be With You Awhile". This one is definitely among the worst ballads the man has ever produced.

The bottom line is, while this is far from Alice Cooper at his best, there are a couple songs to make it worth the while of his fans. And, except for "Be With You Awhile", there is no really bad material. Let's hope Alice's next (due out this fall) is another classic, and the tour, as always will be magical.