Wallace, working with Alice now.

Cornell collaborates on two ballads on Alice's new Last Temptation, one eerily reminiscent of Alice's late '70s "I Never Cry"/Hollywood Squares period ("Stolen Prayer"), one merely messy ("Unholy War"). But Alice's successes have always been sellouts: when he turned toward teen anthems after the dopey Zappa thespianism of Easy Action (1970); when he switched to adult crooning; when he got a New Wave haircut for his last really fun album, the dance-oriented Flush the Fashion (1980). Alice's new record is his most listenable since then.

Temptation is supposed to be a morality play about a bored hick-town teen being lured toward sex and drugs by an evil stranger; the Cornell songs come when the kid starts tangling with his conscience. "Lullaby," the inevitable "Welcome to My Nightmare" (via Metallica's "Enter Sandman") rewrite, comes next, then our side wins. The album's junkiest riffs and funniest jokes come early: "Sideshow" is the kind of song Urge Overkill would overkill for; "Lost in America" is a "Fight for Your Right (to Party)" sound-alike about a latchkey Beavis who wants a dad and a girlfriend with a gun. After those two, though, Alice gets a bit too melodramatic – just like his old music did, not long after "I'm Eighteen" and "School's Out." (RS 686/687)

CHUCK EDDY