The final chapter in the KISS Identity Crisis Trilogy.
I listened to this for a couple days, to re-absorb it, and I hafta say, it's better than I remembered. Some of the cuts, I found myself actually smiling and grooving to it. There's some slick production. The music is full and has some texture.
I didn't skip any tracks while listening, and that says alot.
The good news is the cd shows some KISS signs of life. There are songs that sound like the KISS of old.
But, as with Dynasty and Unmasked, it's no KISS album. The American Symphony Orchestra is on the thing for Pete's sake!! Even more unnerving than that was Paul Stanley singing falsetto. I wasn't prepared for that.
I'm a lifetime fan, and all you other fans can testify to this: KISS, in their recording history, have never gone deep, lyrically or musically, on any song.
Now they're attempting to go deep for an entire album. What were they thinking?
The beauty of KISS has always been they straight play rock and roll and have always been a visual band.
Yet The Elder has the KISS logo on the cover, and that's the only visual.
The real irony here, though, is KISS taking a stab at a concept album, in the process completely lost the original concept of KISS.
All that being said, when I went to vote, to my surprise, I had a hard time choosing what song to vote for. Dark Light, Under The Rose, and the poor man's Shout It Out Loud, I, are some of the ones I like best.
In the end, though, I went with Only You, because it has some crunchy, grinding guitar.