THE BOX SET (2001)

The Kiss Ice Block! Now with added black for pointlessness...

Kiss box set! Full of demos and the usual songs you find on every other compilation!

Things kick off with the greatest demo of Strutter possible. I can't begin to explain why, but this version makes me smile and groove. It is awesome. Then we get the original Wicked Lester demos - the band Gene and Paul were in before Kiss. It is just hilariously laughable rubbish. They sound like a mid-60s flower power hippy band, which is equally hilarious considering Gene has said in interviews how much he hates hippies. The original version of She is fucking laughable - sounds like some sort of flower power remix, complete with soft falsetto vocals. Bahahahahahah. And then Love Her All I Can is actually EVEN FUNNIER!!! This is like The Room of music recordings.

Back to Kiss demos. I'd say these were less funny, except Gene forgets half the lyrics to Let Me Know and then fucks up the bass line on 100,000 Years. Oh cool, now we get a Paul demo from 1966 called Stop, Look to Listen. Holy fuck, his singing is actually all kinds of horrendous here. Then the guitar solo turns up and is like "You want to hear terrible? I'll show you terrible!". But then the lyrics just stand over both and say "Fuck you both - we are the worst part of this song!!!". Just to compound the fun even further, we are treated to a Gene demo from 1969 called Leeta. It's very much in the style of Gene being The Beatles. If The Beatles are the worst band in the history of the universe.


The rest of the first disc is just Kiss songs from the first 3 albums that I have listened to a few times but are still awesome so I shan't complain. They're certainly better than listening to Wicked Lester again.


Verdict = 3 Smoking Les Pauls and a thumbs up


Disc 2 is more of the same; some bad demos mixed in with songs from Alive! through to Love Gun. Highlights include the demo of God of Thunder where Paul sings lead vocals, an early demo of Calling Dr. Love that is called Bad, Bad Lovin', and a demo of a song called Love is Blind where Gene once again thinks he is The Beatles eating a shit pie.


Verdict = 3 Smoking Les Pauls and a thumbs up


Disc 3 is the most pointless so far; a couple of demos and a live version of Talk to Me mixed in with tracks from Alive II through to Creatures of the Night.


Verdict = 4 Smoking Les Pauls


So Disc 4 steps up the pointless game to serious levels of "WHY?" by not even being an interesting collection of songs from the 80s. Seriously, it's like they aren't even trying right now.


Verdict = 4 Smoking Les Pauls


At least Disc 5 contains a few songs that aren't available elsewhere; we get the Unplugged rendition of Got to Choose that was left off the album for reasons of being silly, Nothing Can Keep Me From You from the Detroit Rock City soundtrack, which is a bit of a sappy ballad but actually done well compared to the usual sappy bullshit Paul tries to dish up. And there's It's My Life - not the Bon Jovi song, surprisingly. Great song.

Pointless fucking box set though - if it weren't for the fact it collected a lot of awesome Kiss songs in one place, it would score very poorly because almost everything that was previously unreleased is either terrible or hilariously terrible.


Verdict = 4 Smoking Les Pauls and a thumbs up

ANIMALIZE (1984)

Welcome to Kiss Fabric Barn! Where we meet all your animal print needs...

Shreddy shred shredder!!!

Vinnie Vincent is gone, but don't worry because he has been replaced with shredding! So much shredding going on here, it's really hard to keep up. Opening song I've Had Enough (Into the Fire) continues the themes explored by Lick It Up - that being how Kiss can make some fast hair metal without making it interesting. Though this song somewhat improves as it goes on, so I guess they failed at their plan. But boy oh boy does Mark St John shred up a storm. Heaven's On Fire is quite fun. Burn, Bitch, Burn is almost just as fun. Kiss seem to be discussing fire a lot, perhaps trying to reclaim the glory of Firehouse or Hotter Than Hell?

Get All You Can Take is like the grooviest song since Lick It Up. And then Mark St John shreds his guitar all over the place and makes me think this is a different song. Lonely Is the Hunter follows the same path. Under the Gun takes us back to Lick It Up styles, just with even more ridiculous shredding. Thrills in the Night is much more melodic. Even the shredding has some sense of melody. And shreddingness. While The City Sleeps shows us again that you don't need a good hook or melody or music, so long as you have Gene shouting and Mark St John shredding like Oroku Saki. I'd say Murder In High Heels is much different, but it really isn't. Except for much less shredding. Oh no, wait, there it is. So out of place it made Eddie Van Halen sound melodic.

And with that, we farewell Mark St John and thank him for his only contribution to Kisstory. His reign may have been the shortest, but his shredding is equal to the entire Kiss catalogue.


Highlights:
The hilarity of the shredding

Lowlights:
The hilarity of the shredding



Verdict = 2 Smoking Les Paul Guitars and a thumbs up