Before even listening, Sonic Boom suffers from some degree of disingenuousness just because they dressed Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer up as Ace and Peter. C'mon guys, at least Eric Carr and Vinnie Vincent got their own Kiss persona. And gee, the cover art looks a little familiar too.
Sonic Boom does look back fondly on the band's classic years, particularly the loose, more distilled rock n roll of their first three albums. On the surface, that probably makes it their best album in a long, long time. Even their better albums of the last 30 years have generally been nods to current musical trends, so at least now they're giving a nod to their own success. Granted, "Stand" suffers a bit much from the late 80’s in the chorus and "All for the Glory" is horribly generic, but overall, Gene, Paul and their hired guns make a pretty decent Kiss cover band. Sure, even the best songs on Sonic Boom aren't quite what they wrote 30 to 35 years ago and they don't have the fire that once fueled their drive to the top, but other hard rock bands have done worse. Much worse. Still, the cover is a better rip-off of Rock and Roll Over than the music is.
The package comes with a second CD collecting 15 old tunes, mostly from their first decade. It isn't clear what purpose it serves other than to point out the band's current shortcomings. There's also a DVD from a show earlier this year in Buenos Aires, but the performance finds them going through the motions of trying to be the Kiss of old when those days are long gone. They do shoot an impressive amount of confetti into the crowd though. It kinda makes one wonder what they're trying to cover up.
So many haters to Gene and Kiss crew. All of them sad and very miserable.. Kiss is Kiss. It is a business and for anyone else to think different or be pathetic enough to ridicule them for treating at such, is as sad as their own careers must be. Gene and Paul are wonderful people and were smart enough to turn Kiss into something they could survive on. Honestly, what’s wrong with that? I have learned over the years that the only people that think negatively of Gene and Paul are the very same people that think so negatively of themselves. Check me out at www.superstarsuperstar.com
Posted by Super Star on 11/20/2009 at 03:02 PM ET
So many haters to Gene and Kiss crew. All of them sad and very miserable.. Kiss is Kiss. It is a business and for anyone else to think different or be pathetic enough to ridicule them for treating at such, is as sad as their own careers must be. Gene and Paul are wonderful people and were smart enough to turn Kiss into something they could survive on. Honestly, what’s wrong with that? I have learned over the years that the only people that think negatively of Gene and Paul are the very same people that think so negatively of themselves. Check me out at www.superstarsuperstar.com
Posted by Brady on 11/19/2009 at 02:29 PM ET
I guess AC/DC, Van Halen, Motley Crue, The Who, The Rolling Stones, U2, Warrant... and on an on and on, are also "disingenuous" according to your standards. Keeping original bandmates in a band is a rarity. Ace and Peter aren't in the band for different reasons. This KISS line-up happens to be great, and the continued existence of KISS (vs no KISS) is making alot of people around the world, very happy.
Posted by Rob S. on 11/17/2009 at 03:46 PM ET
One counter-point... AC/DC's new album Black Ice was actually pretty good... So call me a hypocrite! Keep rockin' everyone!
Posted by Rob S. on 11/17/2009 at 03:44 PM ET
I'll go ahead and back you up since you're obviously going to get inundated with hate-posts. Every piece of evidence I've ever seen (Reality TV), or heard (NPR), confirms that Gene Simmons is a no-talent hack, who admittedly built his own image to make money. A few classic tunes doesn't make you a genius, and for more proof of fallibility, I CHALLENGE you to listen to "Love Gun" 5 times in a row. I don't understand why bands like this record new crap, instead of re-mastering old classics or digging through the vaults to find something special. "How The West Was Won" by Led Zeppelin is the perfect example of how to handle this. Let the hate-rants commence!
Posted by saul on 11/17/2009 at 12:08 PM ET
Idiot! This isn't a review. You need to talk about the music somewhere in here.
Posted by Mike Hayes on 11/17/2009 at 08:10 AM ET
Wow..did you ever even see the original KISS because the if you and then watch the DVD - you would have seen for sure that this KISS absolutley blows away the original band live.
As for your comments on Sonic Boom - get your head out of you ass!
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Before even listening, Sonic Boom suffers from some degree of disingenuousness just because they dressed Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer up as Ace and Peter. C'mon guys, at least Eric Carr and Vinnie Vincent got their own Kiss persona. And gee, the cover art looks a little familiar too.
