Hail to Hell is and acoustic tribute to Alice Cooper. I saw the cover art somewhere in social media and I quickly decided “I MUST” listen to that. I have no prior relationship to Eric McFadden, but after avery quick background check he seems to be a guitar virtuoso and has toured the world as well as a solo artist as a part of a band.
I don’t really care. I was interested in the interpretation of the songs. And also, which songs he choose to include as acoustic cover versions. I mean, Alice Cooper has been around for 50 years and there’s a plethora of songs to choose from. Some might be more suited for acoustic versions that others.
As always, when it comes to covers, I want the new version to differ quite a lot from the original. I don’t really see a point of making it more or less exactly like the original. With that said, Hail to Hell features 14 song from Alice Cooper career. Most of them are from the 70s and 80s and that’s no real surprise. The newest songs are songs like Is it Me? and Last Man on Earth. Both make good additions to the acoustic sound.
The others? well, let’s just say that songs that are really suitable as acoustic versions with sparse instrumentation is chosen on Hail to Hell. Welcome to my Nightmare of course, as the cover suggest, but also a couple of my favorite Alice Cooper songs like Former Lee Warmer and Millie and Bille. Songs like my untrained ear would imagine would be some of the easiest to adapt to the concept.
Songs’s that are not included and I would imagined would be pretty hard are song slike Brutal Planet och The World Needs Guts. It would have been fun to hear them in totally different versions. But beggars can’t be choosers and I take an Alice Cooper tribute och not having it any time.
The bottom line is that their could have been a bit more imagination of the song selection but on the other hand, how many other tributes feature songs like I’m the Coolest and Man with the Golden Gun? I like this even if it’s not 100% want I would have wanted. It’s cool!
