Alive II

KISS

Casablanca Records, 1977

http://wwww.kissonline.com

REVIEW BY: Paul Hanson

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 06/08/2006

If I close my eyes, I can see my friend's brother's stack of records in his basement. I remember what it felt like to hold the LP version of this release in my hands and to hear my friend saying, "Don't scratch it!" I can remember the crowd's fade-in and the way this release has always been put up on a pedestal. After spending time with this release this week, I remember why.

Alive II has always held memories for me, dating back to 7th grade and my buddy Tom's brother's record collection. Mike had every Van Halen, AC/DC and Police record, but I always was drawn to KISS, and to this day it has helped define my musical boundaries, proving what a "concert" really was. It's made better by the reliance on material from my_heart_sings_the_harmony_web_ad_alt_250 Destroyer, the band's best album and the first one by them I ever heard.

Kicking off with "Detroit Rock City," the crowd is electric and the band sounds tight, especially Gene Simmons on bass. Launching then into its companion piece, "King Of The Night Time World" always made me think that the kid who died in "Detroit Rock City" ended up in Hell and found guitarist/vocalist Paul Stanley singing this song. One of the magical qualities of this release is the way in which Paul Stanley interacts with the crowd. It felt like he was talking to me.

Granted, in 7th grade, I didn't understand the innuendo behind "Makin' Love" and "Love Gun." It was mainly the drumming of Peter Criss that sparked my interest through those tracks. While Criss' "Beth" will probably always be his legacy, his drumming was enough for me to inspired to practice my snare drum lessons. The guitar riff on "Makin' Love" is one of the best the band ever wrote and Criss' bombastic cymbal crashes and flurry of snare fills make this song excellent. Guitarist Ace Frehley shines on this track as well.

However, it is the amazing "God Of Thunder" that has always made this release for me. It's in the way it transitions out of "Beth" and in the way that I could always imagine the mysterious Gene Simmons stalking around the stage before finally approaching the microphone to start this song, fog and darkness around him. "Shout It Out Loud" and the band's insistence that "You've got to have a party" always made me think it should have led off the concert.

As for the last five tracks, all new studio recordings, I like the concept of what KISS did than the actual tracks. Bands should do things like this on live albums and release material that makes the sum of the material on the live record more than just different versions of the studio songs, which this does. (One quick aside: Guitarist Bob Kulick, Bruce Kulick's brother, plays guitar on four of the studio tracks. Frehley only plays on "Rocket Ride.")

Rating: A

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© 2006 Paul Hanson and The Daily Vault. All rights reserved. Review or any portion may not be reproduced without written permission. Cover art is the intellectual property of Casablanca Records, and is used for informational purposes only.