Artist: Kiss
Label: Roadrunner Records
Release: 2009
Length: 43.17
Rating: 2.5/5
Kiss never belonged to the elite club of above-average musical talents. Quite the opposite: from their vast treasure trove of Kissological highlights, a strong whiff of musical mediocrity has been wafting for decades, and let’s be honest, the gents never really tried to hide it. Not that they had any reason to. Thumbing their noses at the “classic” approach to music, Kiss always went at it purely as showmen. Rather than relying on inspired hard rock sawdust, their formula swore by a peculiar kind of artistic innovation, close to a circus act, which, you have to give them this, fused music and the image of a marketable product in one go.
“Sonic Boom”, the first Kiss album after a long 11 years of hibernation for Stanley and Simmons, stays true to that principle. It’s an unvarnished display of songwriting mediocrity that you’ll digest without any shocks on the first try. The album boasts an extremely compact production package that at times strains to follow trends, yet in the same breath “Sonic Boom” jealously guards the legacy of the band’s past triumphs, stubbornly sticking to the tried-and-true formula of droning, one-beat, bare-bones rock & roll machinery, which, as expected, comes storming in bundled with banal lyrics that, after nearly 40 years of intense circus activity, still don’t seem to have fought their way out of the thick pubic undergrowth of one of the early stages of adolescence.
Let’s take it from the top. Opener “Modern Day Delilah” struggles to build the vibe of a traditional Kiss party, mostly thanks to the modern flavor the gents are working so hard on. A bit more vintage seasoning is on the menu with “Russian Roulette”, backed by a naughty bass line and dressed up with Simmons’ trademark vocal delivery, which feels like an end in itself but is usually the trick that always sparks. We finally find our way into the clean-shaven, traditional Kiss drudgery with “Never Enough” and “Yes I Know (Nobody’s Perfect)”. By suddenly swerving the repertoire in a more recognizable direction, the two tracks make up the album’s peak. “Stand” manages to hold the level of its predecessors all the way to the chorus, which piles up far too obviously, its pop-song leanings anything but a worthy atmospheric upgrade to the colorful pre-chorus action. Sadly, it’s a far too obvious attempt to relive the sensation of in-tune group singing in the vein of the everyman anthem “God Gave Rock & Roll To You”, which with frightening efficiency ruins a fairly promising composition!
From here on, “Sonic Boom” goes into a confident free fall. Credit goes to a bunch of half-baked ideas that leave you with the nagging feeling they were picked with the least possible effort. If “Hot And Cold” and “Danger Us” still try to find the right mix of signature pomp and recognizable heavy rock thunder, then with “I’m An Animal” and “All For The Glory” we finally scrape the bottom of the acceptable, even by Kiss standards, which aren’t exactly sky-high in purely musical terms. Anyway, no need to panic here. Kiss got stuck within the narrow limits of their own musical abilities a long time ago; put differently, with every new step the gents were really just cunningly honing the fetishization of the band’s image. That’s also why those of us in the know, who have no problem accepting this fact, took the mere announcement of the first Kiss studio album in over a decade pretty calmly, without fanfare or excessive enthusiasm. Still, it has to be admitted that, (expected) minuses notwithstanding, “Sonic Boom” contains enough decent nods toward harmless rock & roll fare that will no doubt give the most devoted fans back their youthful looks. However you slice it, that alone means the goal of resurrecting one of the biggest commercial attractions in the story of popular music has been achieved.
Lineup
Paul Stanley: guitar, vocals
Gene Simmons: bass, vocals
Tommy Thayer: guitar, vocals
Eric Singer: drums, vocals
Production
Paul Stanley, Greg Collins
Track list
1. Modern Day Delilah
2. Russian Roulette
3. Never Enough
4. Yes I Know (Nobody’s Perfect)
5. Stand
6. Hot and Cold
7. All For the Glory
8. Danger Us
9. I’m an Animal
10. When Lightning Strikes
11. Say Yeah
