So, from that, you've probably guessed what my stance on this album is: I don't like it. Well...yes and no. There are several things about this album that I don't like, but there's some stuff on it that I can't help enjoying!
I would give you the history of Kiss, but...really, you'd have to have lived a VERY sheltered life to have not heard of the band. What you might NOT be aware is that Kiss was not actually the band's first name! They originally formed in 1970 under the name Rainbow before changing their name in 1971 to Wicked Lester after learning another band was around with that name (this was NOT the same Rainbow that had Richie Blackmoore as a member of the band, which formed in 1975, by the way). They recorded an album that was never released and, due to Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley deciding that the problem with the album was the lack of a singular image and musical vision, they decided to start a new band. By 1973, Wicked Lester was no more...and Kiss had been formed from their ashes!
Anyway, rather than bore you to death with Kiss' history, I'm going to skip to the actual album review. While I might be glossing over A LOT of history (the band released their first album in February 1974, so they have about 41 and a half years worth of history to talk about), the important bit to remember is that this is their 20th album, so I doubt the words of one grumpy git on the internet is going to affect the career of the guys much! They've made their millions, they're a highly respected band, their impact is massive...you see the point I'm making, I'm sure!
So, with all of that said, let's look at the cover art for this album. And, honestly, I think the album would have been better had the album only had the band's name and the album's name on it. With the actual band members on the front, it makes the cover seem a tad crowded, like they're trying remind us that yes, this is a Kiss album. Not that you would have missed it from their iconic logo, but, to be fair, doing this PROBABLY would have resulted in an album cover that would have looked a bit too much like the cover for their 1992 album Revenge, so...yeah, my complaint would probably have caused another one had the band corrected it in the way I think would have made the cover better!
Anyway, let's move to the actual music on the album!
The first problem that comes to mind is the mastering. I know I normally save this kind of thing for the end of reviews, but it's such a serious case of this issue ruining a good mix that I have to bring this up now: it's too fucking loud! There's a difference between a powerful mastering job that enhances the music and just a wall of sound that's a chore to listen to, and you get no prize for guessing which applies here! You could say that's what the band were going for, considering one of the songs on here is called "Wall Of Sound", but I refuse to accept that Kiss would master an album this loudly just because they want to suit a song title! Meat Loaf's Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell was not mastered to a ridiculous extent, and it had a song titled "Everything Louder Than Everything Else"! Granted, it was released in 1993, when this kind of practice wasn't especially common, but I think the point still stands: just because you're playing rock music doesn't mean you HAVE to master it as loudly as you can, as a well produced album in general (which includes a restrained mastering job) will be more enjoyable to listen to, won't cause ear fatigue and will actually make people WANT to turn it up to appreciate the subtleties in the music that are usually impossible to appreciate when the mastering is so loud that you'd deafen yourself playing the album at full volume! The thing that really boils my blood is that, while I think the bass is too loudly mixed (yes, I'm saying someone made the bass too LOUD in a review. Let that sink in, people...), it's otherwise very well mixed.
Anyway, now THAT'S out of the way, now to the band's music!
The best way to sum up Kiss' music, for the benefit of those who haven't heard a single Kiss song before now, is basically hard rock with a couple of hints that point towards influence from glam rock and rock n roll. On paper, this is a combination I'd be drooling over (three of my favourite styles of rock music in one convenient package? SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!), but the problem is that consistency has never been something that I feel Kiss has managed to pull off on any of their albums I've listened to. Sure, you get your famous hits like "Detroit Rock City", "Crazy Nights" and "I Was Made For Loving You", but, when you actually listen to their albums, there's a distressing amount of songs that, outside of the obvious hit songs, seem to go in one ear and out of the other. This problem is in abundance on this album: once you get past the obvious hit of "Hell Or Hallelujah", there's very few songs that really reach the heights that song set...and that's a bad sign, considering "Hell Or Hallelujah" isn't exactly a great song when you give it a critical look at. "All For The Love Of Rock & Roll" is very solid (and also features some good vocals from drummer Eric Singer...you may make the obvious joke about him being in the wrong role in this band if you wish!) and, despite the lyrics making me wondering whether the concept of subtlety has faded from Kiss' vocabulary when writing songs, I can't help enjoying "Take Me Down Below", but apart from that? Not a lot really stands out, although, to be honest, I usually am so bored by the time it gets to "Back To The Stone Age" (or track 4 on the album...OUT OF 12!) that it's possible that I've missed some good songs! It does briefly recover near the end of the album with "All For The Love Of Rock & Roll" and "Take Me Down Below", but, by that point, it's not really enough to stop me from wondering where I put my coffee mug.
Vocally, Paul Stanley still sounds like Paul Stanley, which is quite impressive when you consider that he was 59 when he recorded all of his vocals on this album and how long Kiss have been going, but Gene Simmons...well, he's not unlistenable by any stretch of the imagination, but his voice is definitely not the impressive voice that made "God Of Thunder" so impressive any more. Bear in mind, this is a studio recording, so they're going to have taken time to make sure everybody sounded the best they could...and he still sounds like a shadow of his old self. This isn't mean he's bad by any measure, but I tend to skip any song he has lead vocals on due to it being rather dull, so he's clearly not capable of giving me a reason to care about the song from his vocal performance on them. Eric Singer's vocals on "All For The Love Of Rock & Roll" (the only lead vocal song with Singer on vocals on this album) are fairly good! I wouldn't say he strikes me as an especially confident singer and he certainly isn't up to the standards of Paul Stanley, but he's capable of carrying a tune very well. I wouldn't want to hear him singing lead vocals in a band situation, as I don't think he'd be a strong enough singer to do that well, but he does a good enough job here that I can understand why he got the job of drumming for Kiss (which also requires him to doing backing vocals, before people start to wonder why I'm praising his drumming in that sentence). Thayer (who only sings lead on "Outta This World") strikes me as basically a lower voiced version of Paul Stanley, with a bit of Gene's lower voice thrown in. I'd honestly not have a problem with hearing him singing lead in his own band if he had one, as he's actually pretty good and it's a bit of a shame that he's under-appreciated on this album in terms of providing lead vocals!
Instrumentally, I can't help noticing that Kiss have slowed down the tempo a bit on this album. Now, I get that Gene and Paul are in their 60's now and they weren't exactly playing especially quickly to start with (they weren't playing thrash metal, if you see my point), but this slowing down strikes me as a case of them not being able to play as fast as they'd like to any more, not a decision made to improve the music. A few of these songs honestly would have benefitted from a bit more speed, as they feel like they're a bit too restrained compared to what they should have been. For the most part, the album feels like it's lacking that little thing to kick it to the next level, with the end result that the album feels a bit too safe and also sounds a bit dull. I guess I can't complain too much about this, as Kiss have never been a band who has successfully experimented with their sound beyond a few albums like Revenge, but I kind of have to bring it up due to it being an issue that's going to make or break this album for those of you who haven't liked Kiss' music to start with: if you're half expecting them to try something new, you're sadly mistaken.
Also, I have to comment about the lyrics. I'm not trying to be rude by saying this, but someone please tell Gene that singing about having sex with underaged girls or women in their 20's sounds VERY creepy when you're old enough to be the woman's grandfather. I know, the members of Kiss have personas associated with the members, so you could argue this is a case of Gene keeping to his persona, but there's a reason why pop punk musicians don't keep singing songs involving going to parties when the members get past their 20's: it comes across as rather creepy to hear a person trying to sound like a teenager when they're in their 30's. When you're old enough to be one of the parents of the person your target audience is, you kind of have to find something new to sing about, as it stops being charming or cute and instead comes across as rather creepy to those who are in the know. Again, Kiss probably deserve points for sticking to their guns and not evolving their sound on this album, as most of the times when they've done that have been disasters (Music From "The Elder", anyone?), but Gene needs to start to realise that he's too old to be singing this kind of stuff now. That's not to say the lyrics to the rest of the band's songs are necessarily better than the ones Gene sings ("Take Me Down Below" is rather embarrassing to read the lyrics to, with the second verse (sung by Stanley) and the third verse getting awkwardly close to the kind of thing you'd expect to hear from Steel Panther), but Gene's songs are definitely the most uncomfortable to listen to!
So, now you've got this far, you're probably going "Where are the positives to this thing? You've done nothing beyond taking a dump on Gene Simmons and critiquing the band for stuff that's unavoidable!" Well, that's the thing: there are positives to this album, but the issues that surround the album just drag it down further and further. This is why I said at the start that this is an album that I have several issues with, but which has some stuff which I still enjoy: the issues might be unavoidable, but it doesn't stop them from being issues in the same way that tying your balls to a rocket about to take off and acknowledging that you know what you're doing is a dumb idea doesn't stop it from being a dumb idea. While the Kiss album is infinitely less painful than the other suggestion, my role as a critic is to critique stuff and giving something a free pass just because it's by a bunch of old guys isn't really the right way to go about it, as these are guys who are supposed to know better with regards to a lot of the flaws that they can make with their music.
...Yes, I know I gave The Beach Boys a lot of free passes when I reviewed That's Why God Made The Radio (which you can read here, if you haven't already read it). If it makes you feel better, just pretend I have run out of free passes from reviewing that and that I would be giving Kiss free passes for a lot of this stuff if I had any spare ones at the minute.
Anyway, let's look at what the band do right. As much as I'm not a Kiss fan, I have to admit that they can still write a solid chorus to their songs, as most of them will probably stick with you after enough listens. None of them are necessarily as infectiously catchy as, say, "Turn On The Night" or "Crazy Crazy Nights" (and I've just realised that my favourite Kiss songs have "night" in their titles...it's a coincidence, I swear!), but they're solid enough that I can see Kiss fans potentially finding these songs enjoyable at the very least and non-Kiss fans finding at least one or two songs that they'll be able to take from the album with some feeling of satisfaction. Also, despite my complaint about the band slowing down a bit, they still capable of playing their instruments fairly well. I wish they could have upped the speed a bit to help give some of the songs a bit more of a kick to them, but they still play their instruments to a decent enough standard that I can't complain too much about it. Also, if you can ignore the lyrics, none of the songs strike me as outright bad. Dull is a word that comes up more times than it really should do, but...oh hey, I found a free pass!
...Eh, why not? I'll give Kiss the benefit of the doubt about this album being dull and say that I'm not really one of Kiss' target audience, so I might be being very harsh with this review. What I'm hearing as dull might be really good to hear if you're a Kiss fan, so maybe I'm not hearing this from the right perspective.
Well, I think I've covered just about everything I can cover. Speaking as a member of the music world who finds Kiss overrated, I just find this album generally dull, with some embarrassing lyrics, a few too many songs which don't really kick into gear properly and a mastering job that would leave you wondering if you'd gone deaf if you played the album as loudly as your speakers could manage. Do I recommend avoiding this album entirely? Well...yes and no. Kiss fans who don't have this album, you probably should pick this up because, well, it's Kiss, but, if you're not really into Kiss, there's nothing here that's likely to change your mind that much. My advice is to consider what you thoughts are on Kiss. If you find them anything less than a good band, you should probably avoid this, as it's unlikely to win you over. If you find them a good band at minimum and aren't put off by the issues I've mentioned, then you should probably pick this up, as you might be able to find something in it which I can't.
Final Rating: 4 Out Of 10
A generally dull album with a lot of flaws that drag it down, but some good stuff that can make the album worth a dig into if you have the patience to give it a go and are into the band's brand of hard rock. Kiss fans should still enjoy this album, but most people who want to listen to this album would be advised to approach it with caution or to avoid it all together, as you're not really missing anything special if you don't pick this up. Basically, if you like Kiss, then you should pick this up if you haven't already got it and you aren't put off by the issues I've highlighted, if you don't like Kiss, you can safely ignore this album.
Personal Favourite Tracks: "Hell Or Hallelujah", "All For The Love Of Rock & Roll"
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