Kiss – Dressed to Kill – 1975
Otherwise known as the album with “Rock and Roll all Night” on it.
What else is there?
Not a helluva lot.
I took a long time between listening to these first three Kiss records and writing about them. Why? Because I just plain forgot that I heard them. After a few passes, everything sounds the same.
I’m not going to wax rhapsodic about the merits of these records because they are all fine. If you wanna hear some early 70s cock (of the walk) rock), you’d do fine with Kiss or Dressed to Kill. Both of these are superior to Hotter than Hell if for any reason they don’t sound like they were recorded on a cylinder and finished in an Easy Bake Oven.
What truly redeems this band is not their love of blues based rock, or glam or alcohol and girls and partying, truth is, they never seem committed to any of it. What Kiss is about is selling records. Which is why their marriage with Neal Bogart’s Casablanca records made so much sense. They were all mercenary entrepreneurs the likes of which would be recreated a few years later in the film biz by Golan-Globus and then Miramax.
What redeems them is what comes next.
Grade A-
A Side: Rock and Roll All Night
BlindSide: Getaway
