Saturday 1 October 2011

Welcome 2 My Nightmare, Review


If you follow my twitter account you know already that this is going to be a very a favourable review.  I fell in love with this album pretty quickly.  I had been anticipating it for some time now as the original 1975 Welcome to My Nightmare is a favourite of mine. 
I love this recording for the same reasons as I love the 1975 original.  First of all, it is a concept album.  I admit to being a bit of a sucker for concept albums.  I love listening to an CD in its entirety as a complete work of art and the concept album completely plays into that.
Furthermore, like the first, this CD contains many different musical styles throughout.  Hard rock, ballads, a touch of disco (although done somewhat sarcastically), southern rock, seventies, and others are all thrown in the blender that is the album.   Having said that, this is predominantly a hard rock record.  There are also some different instruments used throughout as well as various sound bites and narrations for an overall quirky, humorous and fun adventure.  
I won’t go into a whole lot of detail about the story here, I don’t want to give too much of it away for anyone who may want to indulge but a few brief details none the less.  It opens with our main character (is it Alice or Steven or are they one in the same, I was never quite sure) fighting sleep.  He eventually succumbs to tiredness and the nightmare continues. Throughout the ride we get tons of typical twisted Alice Cooper imagery.  I won’t reveal how it ends.
As for the songs themselves just a few highlights as well.  It opens in similar fashion as the original release with a bit of a creepy slow to mid temp introduction to the story.  This track, titled I Am Made of You will not become the classic like the opening Welcome to my Nightmare title track on the 1975 record, but it is an awesome tune. 
There are several rockers on here including track number two, Caffeine.  It fits in here as the protagonist of the story is still fighting sleep.  Other rockers include Runaway Train and I’ll Bite Your Face Off.  There is also the much talked about duet with Kesha titled What Baby Wants, another great tune on the disc.  This one is also a harder rocker and Kesha’s vocals fit in perfectly.
Also worth mentioning is the song, Underture.  It is an instrumental number that blends together many of the melodies from this current recording as well as those from the original 1975 Nightmare. 
Although I often use the word disc in this and all my reviews, I actually purchased this one on itunes and with it came a near 20 minute track of Alice talking and taking us through the album one song at a time.  He talks about the influences and musical style of each number and walks us through the story one step at a time.  I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this too. 
I often find when you are anticipating something for a long time it can never live up to the hype.  Well for me, this one did.  I have read some mixed reviews out there, but I think just like the first one, it’s great fun and very worthy of being called a sequel to the original classic. 
Grade:  A +
Favoutite Tracks:  Put it on and let it play from start to finish.  But I do particularly enjoy I am Made of You, Caffeine, and I Gotta Get Outta Here.

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