Kiss
Creatures Of The Night

THE REVIEW

After the failed project "Music from the Elder," Kiss attempted to regain their composure (and to reclaim some of the lost credibility, truth be told, already from the times of "Love Gun") with "Creatures of the Night," an album with heavy metal sounds which represents a novelty for the band, previously engaged with the usual stagnant hard rock or worse, disco-pop music.

The title track, which opens the album, is a statement of intent: enormously pumped-up drums (the intro is simply devastating) and metallic riffs create a sound never so powerful in the Kiss household; convincing performance by the Starchild, determined like never before (nothing like "I Was Made for Lovin' You" and company). The following tracks like "Saint and Sinner", "Danger" (explosive!), "Keep Me Comin" (with its rowdy, redundant chorus) all continue solid and powerful without giving the listener a moment of respite. There is also room for the classic stadium hit, such as "I Love It Loud" (supported by Eric Carr's powerful drum barrages, a constant in this album) which perhaps aims to be the new "Rock and Roll All Nite." But the emotional heart of the album is undoubtedly "I Still Love You," a tragic chronicle of a finished love, where the star here is beyond par: excellent singing, almost whispered in the verses, angry in the refrains, with instruments held back with difficulty, and desperate yet resigned in the chorus. Then there's Vinnie Vincent's solo, beautiful, spot-on, and full of emotion that releases some of the tension that was building up second by second; probably this is the definitive ballad for Kiss as well as one of their best songs ever. The album continues with "Killer" a nice piece with a simple and effective riff by Vincent, more of a good filler that soon makes way for the last cannon shot that closes the album as best as possible: "War Machine", simply devastating as the title suggests. An overwhelming monolithic block, with "hard" riffs (Hetfieldgod teaches) and raw (turning up the volume here is a must), which reminds me of a "God of Thunder" to the nth degree: perhaps my absolute favorite Kiss song.

Ultimately an excellent album then (the last noteworthy one before the dull Hair Metal period) which, strangely, was not met with much enthusiasm by the American public; conversely, the tour was a great success, especially in South America where Kiss performed in front of huge audiences (like the spectacular setting of 200,000 spectators at Rock in Rio). One singular note, however, must be made, paradoxically, about the production: despite the nearly perfect drum sound and the overall sound being more powerful than previous albums, more should have been done for the guitar sound, which in some instances were not exactly well highlighted, and perhaps the two "heads" of the band (Stanley-Simmons) should have given a bit more freedom to Vinnie Vincent, a true Guitar Hero whose potential remained unexpressed during his tenure with the band.