Kiss - Creatures of the Night

Kiss - Creatures of the Night
Country of Origin - USA

Released - 10/13/1982

Number of Tracks - 9

What's that, a Kiss review on this blog? THIS blog of all things? I know, shocking isn't it since most of my readers would classify me as "that black metal guy." While it is true extreme metal, specifically black metal is my genre of choice, old school classic rock and roll is a love as well. Groomed early by Van Halen (via Twister of all things) and continuing to grow more and more as the years go on, I wanted to take a trip down that hardly spoken about world on here (this place is called Unbalanced Ramblings for a reason).

Unbalanced is a slightly topical word, as at this point in the history of the band, it was a rather unbalanced time. Needing to regain some steam and fan recognition (as well as some sales) after the failure that was Music From "The Elder," they needed an album more in line with their work up until when they hit nuclear popularity status. Unfortunately as they were trying to figure that out they released/fired Ace Frehley from the band which required hiring quite a few session musicians to fill out the extra guitar rolls, as well as for other instruments as well.

However come October 1982 the fruits of all of that work came into mass consumption in Creatures of the Night. A point of change for the band in both sound, direction, and lineup, just how well did all of that hard work pay off?

Tracklisting

1. Creatures of the Night

2. Saint and Sinner

3. Keep Me Comin 

4. Rock and Roll Hell 

5. Danger 

6. I Love it Loud 

7. I Still Love You 

8. Killer 

9. War Machine

The immediate thing that will hit the listener when the record starts is just how much faster and heavier it is, which makes sense considering the band wanted to try and win back their older fans who grew up with their harder sound. However this isn't just hard rock, this is borderline heavy metal. Part of that could be them looking around at other bands and wanting to copy the sound, it could also be attributed to their various session musicians (including newly announced full time member Vinnie Vincent) and the more aggressive sound of Eric Carr's drum work. Whatever the reason Creatures of the Night is quite easily the heaviest sounding Kiss album in my opinion. If anything as somebody who tends to listen to metal over plain old classic rock this factor endears the album even more to me. And that metal comes way of the 80s LA scene sound meaning lots of energy and catchiness. It certainly gives the CD and the band an interesting new sound of sorts, though in some instances (specifically Keep Me Comin), it does sound rather generic.

But it isn't just an injection of 80s era metal that gives the album and band some newly charged life. Creatures of the Night also sports some tinges of blues as well, just in a heavier sound. Along with this Stanley's' vocal work has always been melodic, but with the softer and more acoustic I Still Love You the melody reaches an astounding high point. That melody as on most Kiss records also tends to dance with Simmons' more gnarly/barking esque style. Sadly to say though I think Gene here is the one lacking a bit on the album quality wise. Sure he sounds his normally demonic self on tracks like Killer, War Machine, and my personal favorite song of the album Saint and Sinner, but his other two performances are not as great. I Love it Loud is at times hard to understand vocally (and that's from all singers involved, not just Gene) and Rock and Roll Hell sounds garbled and by god are the screams ear piercingly bad. It could be fatigue personally as Simmons does sign 60% of the album, but even then those two tracks in particular are just blehh.

Aside from that small tangent there, the rest of the music is some solid stuff in technical terms. Everything is crystal clear and smooth. The guitars are the show stealer this go around (as I feel they usually are on Kiss records) and while the bass and drums have some nice moments, they simply can't outdo the astounding work Paul, Vinnie, and the other many session artists do. All around it's some pretty solid stuff.

Poe's Favorites

Creatures of the Night

Saint and Sinner

Danger 

Killer

When it comes to Kiss I for the longest time had a specific rule of listening to nothing past Dynasty as 80s era Kiss (outside of the son Heaven's On Fire) had no real appeal to me. But with age comes a desire for some new mindsets and as such I figured I'd at least try Creatures of the Night since it was the (at the time) last album to feature the band in their trademark fashion. The result since I got the album back in late February has been it very rarely leaving the CD rotation in my car. I'm going to play straight with all of you; this is quite arguably my favorite Kiss album along with the self titled debut.

Does the record have problems? Yes it does, but I find that my major complaints come from mostly just how back and forth quality wise Gene sings his tracks. Other than that this is some damn fine Kiss. Heavy and pounding while catchy with a tint of melody has always been the Kiss way in my opinion and this album, Creatures of the Night, ups the heaviness and the catchiness to create one of my favorite albums in the band's catalogue as well as one of my favorite albums period.

Creatures era Kiss