Curiously, just as it had happened with their chief inspiration,
Alice Cooper
, a decade earlier, by the time they released final album,
Master of Disguise
, in 1989,
Lizzy Borden
(the band) had been dismantled and overwhelmed by
the persona and singer, with only drummer
Joey Scott Harges
surviving from the original lineup, and that's because he was
Lizzy
's brother! Musically, too, the subsequent next step was eerily analogous, since, much like
Alice
's triumphant solo debutant ball,
Welcome to My Nightmare
,
's next dance,
, was a highly stylized concept album built on surprisingly solid compositional ground, and did much to eradicate thoughts of recent blunders (in
's case it had been the disastrous
Muscle of Love
; in
's, the contrived and derivative
pop-metal
missteps of
Visual Lies
). In fact,
was arguably the apex of
's recording career -- band or man -- unless you favor the raw, simpler charms of early efforts
Love You to Pieces
and
Menace to Society
. Inspired by the classic
Phantom of the Opera
fable, the album came complete with soundtrack-like sonic effects,
orchestral
arrangements, and highly theatrical performances, which greatly enriched the actual songs within its core. These were themselves surprisingly eclectic, and ranged from sweeping pomp
rock
epics like the title suite and
"Waiting in the Wings,"
to the tough
heavy metal
of
"Love Is a Crime"
"Roll Over and Play Dead,"
plus a few, surprisingly moving
ballads
such as the piano enhanced
"Never Too Young,"
and the beguilingly bleak
"One False Move."
Not unlike
Savatage
's similarly pretentious but entertaining
Streets: A Rock Opera
opus a couple of years later,
was the sort of
opera that, on paper, shouldn't have worked, but somehow did -- although its ultimate commercial failure might suggest it did, in fact, fail. In any event, within the scope of
's career, the record was a more than worthy, and pleasantly unexpected, last bow before the cruel curtains of public awareness closed forever on the would-be king of '80s shock
. Alas,
Marilyn Manson
would fare far better in the next decade. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia