Review Summary: Just when it seemed KISS had lost it and had forgotten what had made them great, they bring back the heavy!
By 1982 it seemed quite plausible that KISS were making a conscious effort to alienate their entire fanbase simply for ***s and giggles. They had previously ventured into disco music with the infamous 'I Was Made For Loving You' on the
Dynasty album, followed that up with the (albeit upon revisiting, a very good album) arguably more pop sounding
Unmasked, and then created the great conceptual turd that was
Music For The Elder. In all seriousness however these albums had seriously dented the reputation KISS had generated through great hard work and phenomenal live shows. Once they were seen as a truly great hard rock band, now their fan-base (well what was left of it) were seriously confused as to what KISS would try to do next. Fortunately KISS saw sense and realised that they are a bloody good hard rock band. Enter
Creatures Of The Night.
This was a serious and well thought attempt at returning to the hard and dirty rock that had made them huge in the first place, and they did it with perhaps the heaviest material they had ever recorded. The unreliable Peter Criss had long gone and been replaced by the more Led Zeppelin influenced Eric Carr (who made his début on
Music For The Elder ), Ace Frehley although on the cover was also gone and replaced with Vinnie Vincent. Therefore the whole band was behind song writing once again, and boy does it show. This is the best KISS album since
Rock And Roll Over and easily stands up to any of KISS' best works.
Unlike the rest of KISS' back catalogue
Creatures Of The Night is considerably dark and has a real air of menace at times (of course not to Gorgoroth levels of darkness). Opening track, the title track for example is lyrically more in common with heavy metal themes of darkness than previous output, and sports a more chugging riff than we have heard from KISS in quite a while. This increased heaviness could possibly be attributed to the burgeoning NOWBHM scene which was becoming increasingly popular, but also has to be attributed to the more versatile drum skills of Eric Carr, who's Bonham like drum skills add an extra dimension to KISS' sound with a loud drum sound. This is most notable in the the intro to single 'I Love It Loud' which is also the most sinister Gene Simmons' fronted songs since
Destroyer's 'God Of Thunder' with his almost rapped vocals and The Beatle's 'Helter Skelter' influenced fade out, then return louder and fade out again.
What is also impressive about this album in contrast to previous output is the lack of filler. In fact, perhaps other than 'Danger' which doesn't quite hit the mark quite so well, there is no track that sounds out of place or lesser than others here at all. 'Saint And Sinner' and 'Keep Me Comin' ' sound like vintage KISS, just better than they have done as of late and even the at this point rudimentary KISS ballad, 'I Still Love You' is still darker and less soppy than the likes of 'Beth'.
Commercially
Creatures Of The Night was not a huge success, reaching #45 on the Billboard Album Charts and none of the songs becoming instant concert staples as such, but KISS did show that they still had their mojo after the catastrophic
Music For The Elder. This album is seriously underrated and is often overlooked when talking about the great KISS albums and even the great hard rock albums. A fantastic return to form for a band that had made some serious errors.
Recommended: Creatures Of The Night, Saint And Sinner, I Love It Loud
.
