Kiss - Ace Frehley (1978)
It's bad enough that I grew up in the land of KISS and KZEP, Riff Capital USA, home of the hard rock, black concert-t-shirt style-sense, the urine-drenched-monument-housing San Antonio. Thank Hashem and whomever else that I wasn't born in approximately 1962. Had I been at that key impressionable age of 14 in the mid 1970s, I am fairly POSITIVE that Kiss would have eaten my poor impressionable soul alive. I would have carried lunch boxes and worn overly enthusiastic Halloween costumes. I am telling you, I am merely temporarily separated from a lifetime of leather-clad, makeup-wearing superfandom; nothing about my constitution necessarily finds that to be a bad idea. Close call, but dodged. I mean, I still got me some pretty wicked riff-rock transcribing DNA, and I will headbang and make devil-horn hand gestures with the best of them. Still, I missed the most theatric and ridiculous aspects of Kiss Rock, and that was a lucky accident.
In 1978, these guitar-as-unsubtle-penis-wielding marketing masterminds released four separate solo albums simultaneously, one from each member of the band. The biggest "guitar" of them all, Ace Frehley*, released what is generally regarded as the best of the four, sticking to the signature Kiss sound and rocking our collective faces off. Not a lot shocking here; lots of loud, guitar-led arena-ready simple rockers with drug-and-sex-oriented lyrics to keep the teens interested. Lotsa energy and sincere snarling, unsurprisingly; what is at least a little surprising is some of the melodic force that these tunes carry. And these tunes manage not to get mundane despite the repeated ownership of their genre. Yeah, sure, indie hipsters everywhere get over yourselves and admit it - this unrelenting dinosaur "cock-rock" is more than a little infectious.
* - Alright, i can rag on Kiss with the best of them, but 1, for a pop-rock band, they do bring it, and 2, I cannot hear the named Ace Frehley w/o immediately singing, "I've got posters on the wall / my favorite rock group Kiss / I've got Ace Frehley / I've got Peter Criss / Waiting there for me, yes I do!" And anyone who inspired Rivers Cuomo is cool with me. And let's not be absurd; I do dig the sound. Which is why I'm so frightened of alternate universe Nyet who was 14 in 1976. Yikes!
I'll go ahead and assume that you've got a firm concept of "classic rock" properly defined and that when I say, "Any of these songs could have sat comfortably on a Dazed and Confused soundtrack," you'll have a solid idea of what I'm talking about. Big guitar sounds, vocals drenched in reverb, dumbly hooky verses and choruses and some solo-driven bridges that catch big, obvious fire. The album opener is a little cliche in this sense; "Rip it Out" just ends up sounding like an Alice Cooper reject and every segment is predictable. "Speedin' Back to My baby" is no less predictable, but it's a high energy blues rocker that carries past its tired form by virtue of its enthusiasm. Both "Snowblind" and Ozone"are slowed-down, big screaming riff numbers that get dark and invoke BOC. The former features a long peppy bridge; the latter has nice acoustic splashes over the top and color-me-crazy, breaks down into a Zappa-esque middle segment. "What's on Your Mind" treads a little back into the played realm; it sounds like it could've been nonchalantly ripped as the That '70s Show theme and no one would have noticed. Catchy and memorable, not exactly earth-shattering or subtle in any way, the first half is adequately effective.
The big moments of the album are saved for side 2, unfortunately juxtaposed with some more the same (but serviceable) basic rock. "New York Groove" is a big deviation from the rest of the album with a clap-along sunshine soul feel; it weirdly sounds like a combo effort from Lou Reed and some kind of super-happy, white bread funk band. There is nothing hard rockin' about this tune - it really stands apart on the album - but it's pretty, beaming-smile-inducing and unashamed of its joyful stomp. The album closer, "Fractured Mirror," is an epic, instrumental feature tune, with Frehley balancing his soaring leads with a folk-pleasant acoustic. This is a nice, stand-out (if a little Journey-esque) closer to an album that otherwise engages in way too much comfort with its formula.
So: a highly enjoyable if somewhat safe album. Nothing is bad on this disc at all, and that's a big plus; I love me a top-to-bottom album. Still, enough moments betray risk aversion that I can't jump all over this one. If you've got a hankering for some larger-than-life, believe-in-rock-gods-again good times, you could easily do worse that Ace Frehley. That is what we in the business call a "qualified rec."
Status: Recommended (Solid)
Nyet's Fave: "New York Groove" (though, really, there are a number of good if not spectacular choices here)
In 1978, these guitar-as-unsubtle-penis-wielding marketing masterminds released four separate solo albums simultaneously, one from each member of the band. The biggest "guitar" of them all, Ace Frehley*, released what is generally regarded as the best of the four, sticking to the signature Kiss sound and rocking our collective faces off. Not a lot shocking here; lots of loud, guitar-led arena-ready simple rockers with drug-and-sex-oriented lyrics to keep the teens interested. Lotsa energy and sincere snarling, unsurprisingly; what is at least a little surprising is some of the melodic force that these tunes carry. And these tunes manage not to get mundane despite the repeated ownership of their genre. Yeah, sure, indie hipsters everywhere get over yourselves and admit it - this unrelenting dinosaur "cock-rock" is more than a little infectious.
* - Alright, i can rag on Kiss with the best of them, but 1, for a pop-rock band, they do bring it, and 2, I cannot hear the named Ace Frehley w/o immediately singing, "I've got posters on the wall / my favorite rock group Kiss / I've got Ace Frehley / I've got Peter Criss / Waiting there for me, yes I do!" And anyone who inspired Rivers Cuomo is cool with me. And let's not be absurd; I do dig the sound. Which is why I'm so frightened of alternate universe Nyet who was 14 in 1976. Yikes!
I'll go ahead and assume that you've got a firm concept of "classic rock" properly defined and that when I say, "Any of these songs could have sat comfortably on a Dazed and Confused soundtrack," you'll have a solid idea of what I'm talking about. Big guitar sounds, vocals drenched in reverb, dumbly hooky verses and choruses and some solo-driven bridges that catch big, obvious fire. The album opener is a little cliche in this sense; "Rip it Out" just ends up sounding like an Alice Cooper reject and every segment is predictable. "Speedin' Back to My baby" is no less predictable, but it's a high energy blues rocker that carries past its tired form by virtue of its enthusiasm. Both "Snowblind" and Ozone"are slowed-down, big screaming riff numbers that get dark and invoke BOC. The former features a long peppy bridge; the latter has nice acoustic splashes over the top and color-me-crazy, breaks down into a Zappa-esque middle segment. "What's on Your Mind" treads a little back into the played realm; it sounds like it could've been nonchalantly ripped as the That '70s Show theme and no one would have noticed. Catchy and memorable, not exactly earth-shattering or subtle in any way, the first half is adequately effective.
The big moments of the album are saved for side 2, unfortunately juxtaposed with some more the same (but serviceable) basic rock. "New York Groove" is a big deviation from the rest of the album with a clap-along sunshine soul feel; it weirdly sounds like a combo effort from Lou Reed and some kind of super-happy, white bread funk band. There is nothing hard rockin' about this tune - it really stands apart on the album - but it's pretty, beaming-smile-inducing and unashamed of its joyful stomp. The album closer, "Fractured Mirror," is an epic, instrumental feature tune, with Frehley balancing his soaring leads with a folk-pleasant acoustic. This is a nice, stand-out (if a little Journey-esque) closer to an album that otherwise engages in way too much comfort with its formula.
So: a highly enjoyable if somewhat safe album. Nothing is bad on this disc at all, and that's a big plus; I love me a top-to-bottom album. Still, enough moments betray risk aversion that I can't jump all over this one. If you've got a hankering for some larger-than-life, believe-in-rock-gods-again good times, you could easily do worse that Ace Frehley. That is what we in the business call a "qualified rec."
Status: Recommended (Solid)
Nyet's Fave: "New York Groove" (though, really, there are a number of good if not spectacular choices here)
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