Review Summary: Sophomore effort from the Alice Cooper band gives us much the same as their debut but also contains hints of what was to come
LepreCon Pesents: Rock Legends
Legend In Focus: Vincent Furnier- ALICE COOPER
Part Two: Can't Keep A Good Freak Down...
It was one year on from their poorly received debut and yet the Alice Cooper band had no intentions of quitting. Still signed to the legendary satirical rock master Frank Zappa’s Straight label, Vince Furnier- who would later adopt the Alice Cooper moniker for himself- and the rest of the band decided to stick to their (hit and miss) guns and gave us another obscure record much in the same vein as Pretties For You from a year earlier.
The Easy Action Lineup Was:
Vincent Damon Furnier-
lead vocals
Glen Buxton-
lead guitar
Michael Bruce-
rhythm guitar and
keyboards
Dennis Dunaway-
bass guitar
Neal Smith-
drums
and featuring
David Briggs-
piano
Being the dawn of a new decade, something had to change. While
Pretties For You was critically panned and a commercial flop, dabbling in 60’s hippy, trippy psychedelia with influences from blues, progressive rock and the British pop invasion, and indeed Easy Action is comparable to its predecessor with respect to sound, the band began to add more hard rock influences into their playing and songwriting. It can be argued that Easy Action was the album that laid the foundation for the rise of one of the most controversial and spectacular rock n’ roll bands of the 70’s, as well as one of the most recognised and acknowledged rock legends of all time. If not, the record was at least the first step in the evolution of the Alice Cooper band.
There is evidence of change on the opening track,
Mr & Misdemeanour, with Vince ditching his clean, poppy vocal style occasionally, in favour of a more familiar Cooper snarl. Even the lyrical matter begins to take a darker turn, often being more negative than the ambiguous but generally light subject matter found on their debut. Although not quite up there with the serial killing themes of later Cooper albums, they are all the same different to what people would have been accustomed to back in the day,
Refrigerator Heaven being about a cancer-sufferer being cryogenically frozen until he can be cured of his crippling ailment, for example.
Like the debut, Easy Action is laden with short, upbeat hook laden tunes between the longer tracks, with songs such as
Shoe Salesmen showing a clear Beatles influence and the Bowie-esque
Laughing At Me. However, upon hearing the awesome
Return of The Spiders, the listener detects the first hint of the hard rocking band that Alice Cooper was destined to become. The loud, buzzing guitars that augment this pure rock n’ roll tune gives a clear sign of their heavier rock influences, something that Pretties For You was almost devoid of completely. Indeed, Easy Action is a more conventional rock album than the band’s debut in the respect that the record contains the ballad
Beautiful Flyaway, something else that Pretties For You lacked.
Of course, as I have mentioned, the 60’s sound is still very much present, most notably on the epic 7- and a half-minute closer,
Lay down and Die, Goodbye, which could have very easily been written by Frank Zappa himself at this time (remember, the band was still signed to his label). It is a mostly instrumental, chaotic blend of keyboard-imbued psychedelia and guitar-infused hard rock that is the least accessible track on the record which takes some getting used to and, indeed quite a bit of it is unnecessary, somewhat marring the closure of what has been another solid early Alice Cooper album. That said, there are a few throwaway tracks that the album could have also done without, one such song being the bland
Still No Air, which has no charm when compared with much of the rest of the album.
The production, while an improvement upon Pretties For You’s scratchy sound, is quite dry. This is believed to be the result of the dislike that producer David Briggs had for the band’s musical direction. Ironically Briggs has a small feature in the album, playing the piano in Shoe Salesman.
All in all, Easy Action is superior to Pretties For You but was still a critical and commercial failure. However, unlike Pretties For You, Easy Action gave the listener a taste of the future, massive hard rocking sound that was to be Alice Cooper on later releases, and thus makes this a slightly under-appreciated gem in the Alice Cooper back catalogue. Not exactly essential, but an entertaining listen nonetheless.
The Easy Action Lineup Was:
Vincent Damon Furnier-
lead vocals
Glen Buxton-
lead guitar
Michael Bruce-
rhythm guitar and
keyboards
Dennis Dunaway-
bass guitar
Neal Smith-
drums
and featuring
David Briggs-
piano
To Be Continued In Part Three: Love It To Death...
