With 1971's Killer, Alice Cooper released a classic album that encompassed psychedelia, horror movies, musicals, prog, and biker rock and compressed it all into timeless nuggets of hard rock gold. It also propelled the band into the rarified upper reaches of the charts and into larger concert halls too. While the next step for most bands would be to stick the the formula and double down on the hooks in ever more commercial ways, these weirdoes did nearly the opposite on 1972's School's Out. Apart from the brilliantly, brutally dumb title track, which indeed does strip their sound down to the thrilling basics and unleashes a perfect marriage of naggingly sharp riffs, hilarious lyrics, and sneering vocals -- the album flies off on weird tangents that are barely related to anything the band had done before -- and the last thing one might expect from them. Case in point: The late-night jazz ballad "Blue Turk" which comes complete with a finger-snapping bassline, multiple horn solos, and a lounge lizard vocal by Cooper. Granted the subject matter is the joy of necrophilia, but the music is a million miles away from what rock fans who were clamoring to hear more Killer-style rockers might expect. "Alma Mater" is another plot twist of a song; a gentle doo wop-inspired ballad that flips the sentiments of the title track on their head as Cooper nostalgically laments his impending matriculation in tones that almost come across as earnest. These pale in the weirdness stakes next to "Gutter Cat vs. The Jets," a loping, light-hearted tale of cool cats that morphs into a high-kicking version of "Jet Song" from West Side Story. Alongside these oddball gems, the band sounds locked in on the rockers like the piano-led "My Stars" and the happily vicious "Public Enemy #9"as well as suitably theatrical on "Luney Tune," a deceptively melodic and orchestrated song about being locked up in the psychiatric ward. All these tracks, and the album itself, have a light, almost swinging underpinning, but almost nothing rocks as hard as Killer, some of it isn't even rock at all. Half the joy derived from listening to School's Out is to marvel at how daringly the band took all the goodwill they had engendered to this point and blew up their just barely established template in fascinating, almost reckless ways. The end result is a bewildering, impressively contrary album that's a glorious kiss-off to expectations while also showing the band's range and ambition in glorious technicolor. [The 2023 reissue of the album adds bright, new remastering plus a full live show recorded in Miami in May 1972. Also included are single versions of "School's Out" and "Gutter Cat vs. The Jets," an alternate version of "Alma Mater," and as a nice surprise, an early version of "Elected,' a song which was a highlight of the group's next album. Taken together, it works as a nice upgrade of an equally confusing and enthralling album.] ~ Tim Sendra