KISS - Destroyer (1976)

I'm not expecting this to be actually good, but it's still going to be a welcome listen. It's been too long since I've heard legitimate cheesy 70s rock. In my opinion KISS is a band that has a reputation that far exceeds its worth. Well, that's a mean thing to say, as any band has some worth if people like their music. It's just that KISS appears to have a huge following and image in pop culture without really making as huge of an impact with their music.

The opening track of Destroyer kinda makes my point. "Detroit Rock City" is a good song, and one of the biggest KISS tunes, still regularly played on classic rock radio. I wonder if a casual listener who had no prior knowledge could tell that the guys playing this relatively tame hair metal tune were the same ones that wear the elaborate scary costumes and the black and white face paint. The image just doesn't really jibe with the sound. It makes me wonder if the KISS guys were into the face paint thing first and only became a band so they had a reason to play dress up.

I doubt the photographer noticed they forgot to bring instruments to the shoot.

"King of the Nighttime World" gives me an easy way to sum up the sound of KISS. They are essentially Black Sabbath crossed with The Dictators, which for most of you means I crossed a band you're sorta familiar with with one you've never heard of outside of this blog. Black Sabbath created most of the cliches of dark heavy metal in the early 70s, which KISS clearly wants to recreate to sound badass. At the same time even when they're trying to be dark, such as with "God Of Thunder", it sounds way too silly and fun, sorta like what The Dictators did with their early punk Go Girl Crazy! I think "God Of Thunder" is actually an earnest attempt to sound badass. If that's true it's pretty pathetic.

"Great Expectations" is ridiculous. Aside from having a clever and completely disjointed melody, the song is completely over the top and theatrical but somewhat underplayed. The band did go all out with a chorus and orchestral backing yet kept the instrumentation muted, which is the opposite of what I'd expect from KISS. Whoever arranged and mixed this track did an excellent job. I am so used to songs like this being forced into a faux-epic sound that just doesn't fit. In this case less is certainly more.

Another particularly understated moment from KISS 

"Flaming Youth" is mostly a return to the cheesy heavy metal I was expecting, except they include a very light pipe organ as a background. I really am surprised how much fun Destroyer has been thus far. "Beth" might be the only outlier. I think it's sung by the same guy who did "Great Expectations" but "Beth" feels more like an honest love song versus a silly parody. Which, eh, it's not bad for a cheesy love song. It's just impossible to take a group like KISS seriously when they write a love song.

KISS tried to be taken seriously, but actually made it way worse.

In any case, Destroyer is a good album. Not a great one, but KISS at least showed me they have some legitimate musical talent beyond just the flashy stage performances. Looking back over this review I very quickly flipped from KISS being a pathetic attempt at being badass to KISS actually having a keen musical aptitude. Sorry if that flip gave you whiplash. Either way I'm moderately impressed and should maybe listen to a bit more KISS. 3 stars.