What has been considered the worst KISS album of all time (or at least when it was released anyway) has slowly been growing on me. It's a concept album like that of The Who's Tommy, which was intended to go with a proposed film based on the album. But with the fan backlash and critical drubbing of the final product, the KISS house of cards finally collapsed on itself. I understand why it was universally hated. I was one of them. Music From The Elder is definitely an acquired taste.

To the average fan or non-fan if you will, the common reaction upon listening for the first time would probably be something like "what the f*ck is this sh*t?". Like I said, an acquired taste, which I seem to be agreeing with lately. I just choose to look at it as a non-KISS album, which it is and look at it more as something different to listen to.

Out is Peter Criss, and in is new drummer Eric Carr. The album did not showcase what a monster drummer he is. He would have to wait a year for that. But the wait is well worth it.

Fave Songs: The Oath, A World Without Heroes and I. The album cover has been speculated over the years to be that of Paul Stanley's hand. It's not. It was a hand model, hired specifically for the photo shoot of the Cover. End of discussion.

Creatures Of The Night is best KISS album during this era of replacement players. Not only that, it's the best KISS album of their entire career, and that includes Destroyer as well. Creatrues has the most aggressive, ferocious playing and singing that to this day has yet to be matched, although Revenge did come pretty damn close.

Let's get this review started off right by saying that even though Ace Frehley is on the cover, he had nothing to do with the album. He had already quit the band but they decided to put him on the cover to once again dupe us into believing all was well. The pattern continues.

More lies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now that that is out of the way. The reason for Creatures being so aggressive and full of balls comes down to the two new guys in the band: Eric Carr and Vinnie Vincent. First off, Eric's drumming was a complete 180° from Peter Criss. Where Peter was more swing influenced, Eric came from the school of hard rock with his idol being John Bonham. Even though Eric had joined the band for The Elder, it was on Creatures that he finally got to shine. And did he ever shine.

Creatures to my ears is one of the all time best sounding drums ever recorded on tape. It is full of thunderous drumming that just makes you   It's that f*cking good. The mix of the drums was pushed to the front without it overwhelming any of the songs. And on top of that the sound of the drums itself is still my fave. Props to Mr. Carr.

The other half of the equation of why Creatures f*cking rules is Vinnie Vincent. Where Ace was definitely old school in his playing, Vinnie was a guitar shredder with all the bells and whistles that come with it. But he was kept in check to service the songs and not his ego and that's why the songs work so well.

With the inclusion of both Eric and Vinnie and their playing at A-game level here, Gene and Paul had no choice but to step up their own game. For the last few albums it was all about pop and disco with those two, not to mention the ill fated Elder album. Both sing with a new sense of purpose. They were going for the throat to reestablish their credibility that was long gone by now. They all aced their test and passed with flying colors. (pun intended)

Fave Songs: Every last mother-f*cking-one-of-them. Even their lone ballad has gravitas. It's so hard tp pick an single MVP here. So, the award goes to the entire album. Great, and I mean GREAT album cover. All time best ever for KISS.

I'll jump ahead a few years now for the sake of explaining the second cover of the same album. Once KISS had reestablished themselves and were experiencing a resurgence in popularity, they went back to re-release Creatures with a new cover. Only problem is that they were once again trying to con the fans that may have already bailed on them when it originally came out to push this as a "new" recording. And on top of that they put Bruce Kulick on the cover to further drive home the point that it's HIM playing on the album. Shameful.

I have both versions, the one with the original track list and this current one. The current one I won't listen to because the original track order is so ingrained in my psyche that listening to the other track order is just too jarring for me.

Just like before with Peter Criss, the band had Ace go out and help promote the album as if he were still in the band. So he did a video and a handful of promos trying in vain to air guitar along to Vinnie's playing.

Well, Vinnie Vincent's reign as KISS' axe shredder was short lived. After reviving the band musically, he became increasingly difficult to work with, both on stage (20 minute guitar solos!! wtf!) and off, making certain financial demands. So out with the old and in with the new. Stepping into the meat grinder was Mark St. John.

Mark was another gun slinger in the mold of the LA scene. But this time Gene and Paul would write all the songs with no input from him, more or less telling him what to play so as not to have another Vinnie fiasco on their hands. Even Gene's partcipation on Animalize was minimal since he was off making movies. Hell, they had Jean Beauvoir come in and play his bass parts on half the album.  So it all falls onto Paul's shoulders, and because of that, this album suffers from it. But Mark's tenure with the band was short lived as he suffered from Reiter's Syndrome. So, he was out of the band after the first leg of the tour.

Remember Bob Kulick from previous reviews here? Well Gene and Paul asked him to come on board full time. He refused. But he recommended his little brother Bruce for the gig. He got it and went on to become the longest tenured guitarist for KISS in it's history, longer than Ace Frehley himself.

I admit that when Animalize first came out, I thought it was great. But over the years it's getting harder and harder for me to listen to it. It has certainly lost a lot of it's edge over time. Average at best is the kindest thing I can say about it.

Fave Songs: I've Had Enough (Into The Fire), and Heaven's Of Fire. Cover is meh.

The music climate had changed drastically by 1987. This was at the peak of hair metal and power ballads and lots of keyboard-influenced songs were dominating the airwaves. KISS was not immune to this and just like every other time before, tried to jump on it's band wagon. Big mistake. KISS and Keyboards are not a happy marriage. Years earilier they had a pretty good song with Christine Sixteen on the Love Gun album. But that was with a piano and it was still a rock boogie song. Here, it's just a bit much with the keyboards.

Overall, the production was garbage as they decided to make the most "pop" oriented album up to now. There's a couple of songs that are ok, but the majority of Crazy Nights is pretty forgettable. This gets a 1 star bump only for Bruce Kulick's opening guitar intro/solo for No, No, No. As for the rest of the song itself. No, No, No indeed.

Fave Songs: Good Girl Gone Bad. Album cover is better than Asylum, but still needs some work on getting creative once again.

Hot In The Shade is the longest running album in their career clocking in at just under 1 hour. Overall I enjoy the album immensely. Thank the almighty stars above that they got rid of the keyboards. But they basically jumped from one ship to another. This time around, acoustic and unplugged songs were all the rage. So of course, KISS once again tapped into this. But they finally were able to get it right with Forever, their first Top 10 (and last) hit since Beth. The album was back to what they do right, writing and playing rock songs. Deciding to produce the record themselves, both Gene and Paul crafted a solid disc full of songs and got rid of that awful "polished" sound of Crazy Nights, which makes me ill to this day.

This is also the final album with Eric Carr on drums before passing away. It's just ironic that they wait all this time to give him his first song to sing lead vocals on Little Caesar. RIP

Another great song that got plenty of airplay was Hide Your Heart. This song was so good, that even Ace Frehley covered it the same year for his own solo album Trouble Walkin'. But of course their biggest hit on the album was Forever, which was co-written with Michael Bolton, whom Bruce Kulick was a member with in their band Blackjack as the lead guitarist back in the day. Say what you will about Bolton, but when he wants to write a rock song, he can write some pretty impressive stuff. This was the first notable songwriting collaboration with KISS and a high profile singer since Bryan Adams co-wrote songs for Creatures Of The Night.

Fave Songs: Rise To It, Hide Your Heart, Love's A Slap In The Face, Forever, Cadillac Dreams, King of Hearts and Little Caesar

Album cover is ok. Nothing to write home about. But the cover did inspire them to construct a working Sphinx as their main stage piece for their Hot In The Shade Tour.

Fun fact: The video for Rise To It was the only time between 1983-1996 that either Gene or Paul put the KISS make-up back on in full costume. It was cool to see when the video came out.

Alive III suffers from the same things as before with the other two live albums...doctoring. Not only that, this "concert" isn't even from the same show. It's a collection of songs pulled from multiple shows. On top of that, one of the songs, I Was Made For Loving You, was recorded at a soundcheck with crowd noise added later. I had heard about this for years. But I had to check on Wiki to see if there was any mention of this. Sure enough, there is.  Also, some songs have been edited, case in point...I Just Wanna. The crowd participation of the song ends with "f*ck". But the band felt it necessary to edit that out and insert "fuh". I knew something wasn't right with this record based on that one song, because I went to the Revenge show and the crowd was very into it, singing along with the added "f*ck".

Alive III was taken from the Revenge Tour, so there's plenty of full concerts in their entirety that they have in their possession. But they chose to splice it all together and pass it off as one of the full concerts "as is". This deception needs to stop. To continually f*ck over fans that pay their hard earn cash is despicable on the part of both Gene and Paul. I get that they want to put out the best possible product to bolster their stage show credibility. But they are doing themselves more harm than good with the lies. Oh well....

As for the album itself. If you take the songs one by one and not as a "concert", the majority of them are ok. Nothing really stands out as jaw dropping. Average album at best. I prefer to watch the Revenge Tour live on DVD.

Fave Songs: The Star Spangled Banner <----Sounds sick on a Surround Sound stereo set up. The cover is meh.

By this time, KISS had been doing occasional acoustic sets at select KISS conventions which proved to be a success. The band was approached to do the MTV Unplugged series and this is the results. The biggest selling point for the show and the resulting album was the reunion with Peter Criss and Ace Frehley, which would be the first time all 4 had performed on stage together in 15 years.

When I heard that this was going down, I couldn't wait for Halloween to come around (it premiered on MTV on that day). I got chills seeing Peter and Ace walk out and performing. Such a great moment for me and any other KISS fan. This mini reunion would kick start the massive Reunion Tour that would kick commence in 1996.

As for Unplugged itself, it's a fantastic album full of great KISS songs that actually work extremely well within the confines of acoustic guitars. It's not entirely acoustic mind you, but it works. Love it. The current lineup (at that time) of Gene, Paul, Eric and Bruce take center stage for the bulk of the show. It's during the encore that they bring out Peter and Ace to perform Beth and 2,000 Man.

Then they bring back out Eric and Bruce to rejoin, making this the only time that all current members of KISS were on stage with the original members to perform together on Nothin' To Lose and Rock And Roll All Nite.

Fave Songs: Every last one of them.  MVP award goes to Every Time I Look At You.

As for the Poster Insert, this was included with all LP Vinyl pressings. I never got that and went with the CD. Hell, I never even knew it had Vinyl pressings till now.  These Posters were the only ones I could find online. So the quality is meh. Album cover is nothing special here.