Yesterday I went out to Walmart at the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza Mall in Los Angeles and bought the new KISS album, Sonic Boom — their first new CD in 11 years. I brought along Steve from Dharma Zen Center who said that malls are soul-destroying places. It’s true. In the hour or so I spent in the mall it was like I could feel my soul being slowly eroded. And I don’t even believe in souls! What is it about places like that? It’s sad that so many people spend so much of their time in those vacuum packed hell holes. They make me feel physically ill.But you do what you have to do. KISS has some kind of a special deal with Walmart and the album is available there in an exclusive edition that includes a bonus CD of re-recordings of some of the band’s classic hits plus a six-song DVD of a recent live show in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I couldn’t pass that up.
First off, as every reviewer who has written about the CD has already said, this is a far better record than the previous KISS album, 1998’s Psycho Circus — their so-called reunion record, although it was later revealed that lead guitarist Ace Frehley and drummer Peter Criss had contributed very little to it. Even die-hard KISS fans like me had trouble getting behind that one. Yet in retrospect Psycho Circus isn’t really that bad. It was more a victim of unreasonably high expectations. But Revenge was better…
This new one, though, is amazing. It’s vintage 1978 KISS in 2009. The opening track, Modern Day Delilah rocks as hard as anything the band recorded in their prime. You could have told me Danger Us was an outtake from 1976’s Rock And Roll Over and I would’ve believed it. I’m An Animal is what heavy metal is all about, based on a pulverizing Black Sabbath type riff the likes of which Gene Simmons hasn’t pulled off since Unholy on 1992’s Revenge. Never Enough is one of those fist pumping Paul Stanley anthems, even though the verse melody seems to be subtly lifted from Ozzy’s Flying High Again. Hot And Cold reminds me of The Who and somehow there’s no irony in 60 year-old Gene Simmons telling us “if it’s too loud you’re too old.”
Throughout the record, lead guitarist Tommy Thayer does Ace Frehley better than Ace ever did. Though this fits the album, I was hoping to hear a little of the guitarist’s own personal style rather than his mastery of Ace’s licks. I kept thinking of the stories of the session guitarists who filled in for Ace when he was too wasted to rock in the late Seventies and were told not to play anything Ace couldn’t have done. Sounds like founding members bassist Gene Simmons and rhythm guitarist Paul Stanley told Tommy the same thing. Still, it works and Tommy’s own composition When Lightning Strikes is as fine an example of vintage KISS as any of Paul or Gene's contributions, even if the title seems deliberately reminiscent of Ace's Shock Me.
My only complaint about the album is that it lacks one of the ingredients that always made the old KISS records so special to me, namely that one weird, experimental track they always managed to include. There’s nothing on here to compare to the mad ballad Goin’ Blind from 1974’s Hotter Than Hell, the heavy metal jungle chant Almost Human from 1977’s Love Gun, the weird Ventures-on-Quaaludes instrumental Love Theme From KISS from their debut album or even their mega-hit ballad Beth from 1976’s Destroyer, which is a pretty odd song when you actually listen to it. There are no bizarre covers like their Ramones-style reading of The Dave Clark Five’s Any Way You Want It from Alive II or their heavy metal masacre of Phil Spector’s (via The Ronettes) Then He Kissed Me (re-titled Then She Kissed Me so as not to scare off homophobic metal heads) also from Love Gun.
Oh Gene Simmons’ perverted poetry still sounds like Spinal Tap (“Flip a coin is it heads or tails tonight?” from Yes I Know, “Feel my tower of power” from Hot And Cold). But then again Simmons was doing that long before Christopher Guest and Michael McKean ever came up with the idea of Spinal Tap. And I wonder if the album will stand the test of time or if I’m just over-excited at getting to hear a brand new KISS record after so many years. The latter question is impossible to answer yet. But it sure sounds good right now.
As for the bonuses, the CD of re-recorded KISS Klassics (that’s how it’s spelled on the label) was available in Japan as a stand-alone CD a year ago. I didn’t buy it then because I thought the whole idea was pretty pointless, except to Gene and Paul who would stand to make more money from the new recordings than from reissues of the older versions. It reminded me too much of Joey Molland, the sole-surviving member of Badfinger, who issued a CD of newly recorded versions of his old band’s greatest hits for similar reasons. At least in Molland’s case he probably legitimately needed the money whereas Simmons and Stanley scarcely have that problem.
Still, it’s not half bad. The remakes of Deuce and Black Diamond rock harder than the tinny sounding versions on their first record (though that tinny sound was massively fixed up on the late 90’s remastered CD). Detroit Rock City and the two other selections from Destroyer lack Bob Ezrin’s masterful production work, but manage to sound OK anyhow. Yet while Tommy Thayer is terrific at mimicking Ace Frehley’s guitar style, he’s less convincing when he takes on Bruce Kulick’s solo from Forever or even Vinnie Vincent’s break in Lick It Up. The biggest disappointment, though, is the new version of Christine Sixteen. Yeah, I know, it was kinda creepy even in 1977 to hear a 28-year old Gene Simmons salivate over a high school girl. He must have been mortified to go through that leering spoken-word section in the middle of the song (“I don’t usually say things like this to girls your age, but when I saw you coming out of school that day I knew I got to have you”) again at age 59 with a 16-year old daughter of his own back home and it shows. But who cares? It’s just a song, dammit. Stay in character! Overall, though, I like having these new versions. Still, I’m glad I didn’t waste my money on the stand-alone Japanese CD.
The DVD on the other hand is a superb document to the power and glory that still is a KISS concert even without two of the band’s original members. Truth be told, Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer play those songs more convincingly than Ace Frehley and Peter Criss probably could these days anyway. A version of KISS that’s half KISS tribute band actually kind of makes sense. I hope I can still rock out like Gene and Paul when I’m 60! Especially since the audience seems just on the verge of rioting the entire time. It’s fun to hear the band launch into impromptu versions of Guantanamera and Una Paloma Blanca. Weird little jokey bits like this are one of my favorite parts of any KISS concert (I saw them do a few Baatles numbers in Japan once as well as bits of Stairway to Heaven) and they’re usually edited out when the shows turn up on official video releases. I just wish they’d included the whole concert instead of only six songs. But the rumor mill has it that the band plans to release a set of DVDs from their recent Alive 35 tours. I guess I’ll have to wait or else buy a bunch of high priced bootlegs of those shows next time I get to Tokyo.
Overall this is as tremendous a package as any KISS fan could hope for and I’m glad to have it! Rock and roll all night, baby!
