Angel - Sinful

1979

Late 70's pop rock. Sometimes it's terribly bad in a high cheese factor kind of way. At their best they've got a Boston/Cheap Trick vibe happening, but sometimes it's not that good. Bay City Rollers keep coming to mind. This is a guilty pleasure type thing. it's not cool to like the Partridge Family or Styx. Is it? This album seems a bit ahead of it's time.

-Sweet/Runaways/Alice Cooper glam rock. The keyboard/synths kill are way overbored on the first song then they just kinda go away.

-Killer Bubblegum pop/rock record.

Jeff Beck Group - Beck-Ola

1969

Very similar to Led Zeppelin. Except this is more stiff and white sounding. Good record with good players. I wish it was more balls out.

AC/DC - Black Ice

2008

This sounds bored and generic. Production wise it's great. Brian Johnsons' voice sounds as good as it ever has. AC/DC know how to do it, it just sounds uninspired.

-This sucks. Bad. Can't listen to it without getting annoyed and angry.

Kiss - Asylum

1985

This one rocks surprisingly good in an early Dokken early 80's LA Metal kind of way. Better than Diver Down. Catchy 80's pop Metal.

Production wise. The vocals stand out for their searing  inhumaneness. Especially on the choruses.

This very similar to their previous album Animalize, but this one is better.

When Bruce Kulick came in to record this album. Basically he said Paul and Gene were the bosses and he did what they told him. I assume he had a certain amount of freedom. If I remember correctly. - He said Gene would work any day, but Paul wanted weekends off and between the two of them Bruce worked like 25 days in a row...and was loving every minute of it.

Kiss - Crazy Nights

1987

It was still the 70's when Kiss started playing catch up. There should be no surprises that this album sounds the way it does. In the early 80's when Metal started busting out and into the mainstream it was more legit and hard rockin'. By the time the mid/late 80's hit Metal ballads, keyboards and smokin' fast guitar solos jammed into every song...cheese pop metal had been run into the ground and been watered down to the point where it was very similar to runny diarrhea ...popular metal on MTV was really the bottom of suck. This is what Kiss is shooting for here and they nail it!

-Strong contender for worst Kiss album and not surprisingly one of their best sellers. Certainly the best selling of the non make up era.

There's some rippin smoking guitar playing here. This album is super polished. It doesn't even sound like a band. It sounds like a production.

They're going for the lowest common denominator again. They achieved it! The keyboards...A bunch of song writers helping out. Did I say this might be the worst Kiss album? But it's still and interesting time capsule. The sounds here ARE MTV 1987 so much of this reminds me of the popular rock bands played at the time. Other bands...

Kiss - Monster

2012

Kiss albums always have strong openers. Songs that grab you right away on the first listen. You're, "Wow, this is pretty good". What happens with repeated listens, and with not that many repeats, you never want to hear that song again.

     This feels like the most honest Kiss album in ages. Each song go's back and forth with Paul and Gene trade off vocals. Production is pretty fancy, where on the last album Pauls voice was sounding pretty tired. He sounds fine here. Genes vocals are his best in years and years. This album really emphasizes the strengths of their voices and somehow manage to push their weaknesses aside. I can't imagine they could ever sound this good live. I like the guitar solos too. This sounds more like amped up 80's Kiss with fancy modern day production than any of the 70's classic Kiss.

    By the time you get to the seventh song or so..."Uh, it's still going"? That's where it gets a little Gene heavy with the dumb lyrics and all. Tenth song or so Tommy gets to sing about riding midnight rockets and space. Trying but not quite capturing the essence of an Ace Frehley song that is overridden with modern day Kiss type choruses. After that the Drummer sings a song about Rock and Roll and totally nails the Peter Criss type song that you wish wasn't on the album. 

  The album ends with a song where Paul and Gene trade off vocals. Maybe the strongest song on the album, but by the time you get here...just too tired of this. Next time, I'm gonna start with the last song skip the first song and end with the Peter Criss type thud.

This album is better than Sonic Boom. (After further listening to Sonic Boom, this album is not better than Sonic Boom).

Enoch - The Hierophant

2011

Jam out fuzz out rock out.  Psyche Power trio stoner rock out extended jams.