2009
Opener is a passably solid rocker. Gene Simmons is silly. More like 80's hair metal then the 70's rock that people claim this is supposed to be getting back to. The Paul songs sound like Paul songs. Pauls voice gets a bit hoarse/raspy here and there but I suppose there was nothing they could do about it. Gene songs sound like Gene songs. His ego is big. You can hear where they went back and tried to draw from their old stuff. If you were not a life long Kiss fan You just might dismiss this and say it sucks, and it does have it's fair share of suckiness. But it bounces back and forth from suck to interesting. Sometimes during the same song. Gene Simmons is silly. They give Thayer the vocals on a song which is not such a bad idea. His voice sounds more like Peter Criss than Ace ironically. The chours is pretty sucky. He whips out a bunch of Aceisms during the guitar solo. (Oh ,Turns out the song I thought Thayer is drummer Eric Singer).Kiss does a pretty good job of trying to copy who they once were. But they refuse to give up the big sing a long anthem crap. They insist on shoving and forcing it into every song. Without a doubt their best album in 25 years. Thayer outdoes Ace at being Ace. He's got the tone down and "get's it". This is better than I expected it to be. I don't think I know a single person who would like this. I do think this has most appeal in middle American and Taiwan.
I hear things, like the song that sounds a lot like Poison "Ain;t Looking For Nothing but a Good Time,(Never Enough) and I'm trying figure if this sounds like Kiss or if sounds like something KISS was copying. I hear the 70's elements that do sound like KISS but the 80's elements sort of sound generic, but I guess that's how KISS sounded in the 80's anyway.
As I listen to this now I think they totally pull off what they're trying to do. Just compare this to Carnival of Souls. That album has almost nothing to do with KISS. This one sounds like KISS through and through. I think in 2009 or 2018 though that's not going to appeal to anybody except people who are already KISS fans. I assume that's what they're aiming for here anyway. Success!
Man, I love this record. But then, I love 80s hair metal and 70s hard rock, which I think this is a combination of. Tommy Thayer used to play in the hair metal band Black n' Blue, so there's a little bit of that here, but I think he held back a lot and tried to emulate Ace. And I think he did a pretty good job of it.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Ace, I don't see "Anomaly" reviewed yet. Is that on your radar?
Both "Sonic Boom" and "Anomaly" are on my top 10 list for 2009, which I will reveal on Hard Rock Nights the last week of the year. Check out http://hardrocknights.wordpress.com when you get a second.