Tuesday, 22 December 2015

PSYCHO CIRCUS (1998)

I always wondered why it was so easy to fade out Ace and Peter's faces on this '3D' cover...


Kiss are back!!!

The first album from the original line up in almost 20 years!!! Except it turned out Ace and Peter were barely allowed to be involved. But hey, their faces and names got to be plastered on the cover so that meant something...

The opening track is actually pretty darn awesome. Very much classic Paul, complete with him doing a cool ass solo. Within sounds like it came straight from the Carnival of Souls reject pile. Paul keeps going for his anthem thing with I Pledge Allegiance to the State of Rock'n Roll. Damn, that is a long ass song title. Ace gets in on the action with Into the Void and it is all kinds of awesome. Just classic Ace rockin' out styles. Then Gene decides he needs to cheese this shit up like it's his solo album in 1978 with We Are One. This song is where you realise you are not really listening to a Kiss album because there is no way Ace would play on a cheese ball sandwich like this. Hilarious lines like "You are me, I am you/What you see is all true". Apart from the credits to this album that say Peter Criss on drums, right Gene?

Shit gets even sillier with You Wanted the Best; everyone just spouts off lines about how much they hate each other and stuff, but then Gene says 'Hey the fans want us as a band so let's just play music and make them happy!'. SO MUCH FUCKING IRONY

Raise Your Glasses is Paul actually hitting that bullseye on the anthem target. I love this song so much I've ripped it off for one of my own. Just remind me to come delete that sentence when I become a big famous rock star and make millions off that one song. From the best song on the album, we go immediately to the absolute fucking dirge that is I Finally Found My Way - the schmaltziest, corniest, most terrible fucking ballad anyone in Kiss has ever even attempted. I pity Peter Criss for being saddled with this poor excuse for a song and being expected to make something of it that didn't resemble a pile of shit. I get that Paul Stanley just wanted another Beth, but he should have written something better. Or just used one of Peter's old songs. Nobody bought Let Me Rock You - just redo Let It Go as a band and it would have been one of the best songs on the album. Instead, we got this. Just no. NO. Fuck, no no no NO NO NO!!!

Dreamin' is some sort of dark brooding lost love song. So not Kiss, but Paul Stanley makes it work. Then we close off with Journey of 1,000 Years, which is some weird mess filled with strings and horns and Gene being boring and singing about crowds roaring. But because I play on a hard level, let's have that bonus track In Your Face, a song written by Gene but with Ace on lead vocals. It's nothing special.

Just like this album.


Highlights:
Psycho Circus, Into the Void, Raise Your Glasses

Lowlights:
I Finally Found My Way, Tommy Thayer getting to live out his dream and pretend to be Ace Frehley



Verdict = 3 Smoking Les Paul Guitars


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