Totally agree. And I don't think COS will change that, however heavy it might be. Didn't Warrant 'go grunge' too? I'm expecting 'grunge KISS' to be about as credible as 'grunge Warrant', not that I ever heard a Warrant album...
KISS Carnival of Souls: The Final Sessions (Mercury Records, 1997) Carnival of Souls: The Final Sessions is the 17th studio record by KISS. It was recorded from November of 1995 through February of 1996 at Music Grinder Studios, in Hollywood, California. The album was produced by Toby Wright, Gene Simmons, and Paul Stanley. It is seen as one of the more polarizing albums in the band’s long and varied discography (probably right up there with Music From The Elder in terms of love/hate from the fan base). Carnival of Souls: The Final Sessions was originally intended to follow up KISS’s Unplugged album that was released in 1995 and aired on MTV with a companion video released at the same time. With the success of that album, however, and the hype behind original members Ace Frehley and Peter Criss joining for a few songs, the excitement began to build about a possible reunion of the four original members and a subsequent tour. Never the less, through all of this anticipation, negotiations, and speculation, the band was still at work recording Carnival of Souls: The Final Sessions with their regular line up of Simmons, Stanley, Kulick, and Singer. However, when the reunion was announced in 1996, the band ultimately decided to cancel the release of the record and it was shelved. It would not be released until late 1997 as Carnival of Souls: The Final Sessions after rough bootlegs of the album had been circulating for almost a year prior. The origins of Carnival of Souls: The Final Sessions sound go back to the rise of “grunge” scene (a stupid term but that's the usual accepted nomenclature) in Seattle in the early to mid 90’s. Bands like Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, Nirvana, Melvins, and Mudhoney were becoming the heavy music of the day and replacing more mainstream hard rock and metal in many listener’s collections and on the radio. KISS feeling, once again, that they needed to shift their focus to a trending sound, decided they wanted to put out a heavier, darker album that was something akin to Alice In Chains like material. Approaching producer, Toby Wright, who had worked with Alice in Chains on their self titled album (otherwise known as “Tripod”) the band began to work with him just months after that album was completed in terms of the recording sessions. Indeed, the music on Carnival of Souls: The Final Sessions is dark, dense, and has off kilter time changes and involved instrumental sections. It’s certainly one of the most ambitious albums, music wise, that the band had ever attempted and it had to push Simmons and Stanley to handle some of the material in terms of execution. Indeed, Bruce Kulick handles much the of the guitar work for the album and plays bass on six of the albums’ 12 tracks. Surprisingly, he also got a lead vocal for the last song on the album “I Walk Alone” (a somewhat fitting send off for the guitarist who had been a mainstay in the band for some ten years). Eric Singer, ever the pro, handles the music with ease. Indeed, his deft fills and fine drum work help propel much of this dense, tough material to great heights. Vocally, Simmons is right in his wheelhouse with this kind of material as his gruff, powerful "Demon" voice fits the dark, heavy material perfectly. Stanley, on the hand, doesn't fair as well (and that's being kind, but more on that as we go). Personnel wise, there are no outside players on Carnival of Souls: The Final Sessions, but both Jamie St. James and Tommy Thayer from Black 'n' Blue contribute songwriting as well as outside contributors Curt Cuomo, Ken Tamplin, and Scott Van Zen with additional songwriting credits. Carnival of Souls was the first KISS studio album to not reach even Gold status in terms of sales. The album is uncertified by the RIAA but has sold close to 200,000 copies since Sound Scan starting tracking the numbers. It’s highest charting was #27 on the charts lasting 4 weeks. No songs from the album have ever been performed live by KISS, but Bruce Kulick in other projects has performed “I Walk Alone” and “Jungle”. The Eric Singer Project has performed both songs as well. With that somewhat shaky introduction in terms of factoids and the history of Carnival of Souls: The Final Sessions let's now look at the first song "Hate". HATE 1997 (Simmons, Van Zen, Kulick) (4:36) “Hate” was written by Gene Simmons, Bruce Kulick, and Scott Van Zen (who had had a previous writing credit with KISS on Revenge for the awful “Spit”). The origins of “Hate” date back to 1993 with Simmons having the chorus worked out, but not until Van Zen and Kulick came along would the song take full form. Both Kulick and Simmons envisioned the song being a follow up, in terms of spirit, to “Unholy” which was the lead track from Revenge. The song was demoed several times during sessions after Revenge during the down time the band had after the tour. The beginning of “Hate” starts out with some weird sound effects that were achieved through plugging a guitar into a very high amp gain along with a overdrive distortion pedal. Apparently that’s Paul saying, "Ladies and Gentlemen, from Boise, Idaho... direct from the Paramount Theatre... 12 years-old, little Billy Corgan" with “Corgan” being backwardly masked. (Bruce, claims on his website, that the band was just having some fun and no ill will existed between the Smashing Pumpkins frontman and the band). From there the band launches into a crushing tune complete with a dominant and hard hitting vocal by Simmons with backing vocals by Paul, Eric, and Bruce. Lyrically, the song is along the lines of “Unholy” in terms of theme as Simmons stated in an interview that the song is about humans having the “instinct to want to kill and having to fight that urge” (KISSMONSTER.com) to live in a civilized society. Musically, “Hate” is a choppy tune with heavy, down tuned guitars with drummer, Eric Singer, bashing away behind his kit adding huge, complex staccato beats and fills with little bits of interesting percussive effects here and there and awesome cymbal work. Gene is on bass for this one and is very busy adding lots of runs underneath the guitars and the drums. Kulick claims to be primarily responsible for the bridge of the song which Gene really liked and decided it needed no vocals for that part. It, indeed, is a powerful part of the tune and leads up to Bruce’s solo where he uses what’s called a Whammy Pedal which allowed him to do several octave shifts as well as providing the wild, frenetic sound from his guitar (Kulick says that to try and recreate this solo live would have been "a nightmare"). To me, “Hate” starts out the album with a bang and I really like the song. I think it sets the mood perfectly for a dark, gritty, and foreboding sound which is what KISS was looking to accomplish. That said, there’s nothing really that novel or eye opening about the sound of the song as bands like Alice In Chains and Soundgarden had mined this kind of down tuned, dirty style before KISS, but credit must be given for the powerful performance of Simmons' vocal, Singer’s terrific drumming, and Kulick’s inspired guitar work. It’s a great start for the album and leaves me wanting more of this type of thing (though I’ll admit I’m a total sucker for really sludgy, ugly metal like this so maybe take my opinion with a grain of salt).
I really can't get my head around a grunge Warrant. That's like a punk Leo Sayer! I'm going to try to keep an open mind about COS but much like cows who keep an open mind on the way to the slaughterhouse, I don't expect the outcome to be a pleasant one.
With the only difference that KISS did grunge in 1974 with tracks like Going Blind and most grunge bands were big KISS fans. Can't say the same thing about Warrant.
Right of the gate Carnival of Souls dissapointed me with Hate. Not much of the tune behind the heaviness here, to put it mildly. I picked up COS the same day as Priest's Jugulator with the huge expectations and boy did the opening tracks of both leave the bad smell in my mouth. 2 classic band shamelessly chasing the 90's trends with pretty much disastrous results. COS of course turned out to be a better album than Jugulator but the opening track showed very little promise.
HATE So back in...geez...I don't know...COS was maybe my first internet bootleg. If I recall the tempo was different, either faster or slower based on the cassette it was bootlegged from. But damn did I love it and couldn't believe it was sitting on the record companies shelf! Word was they planned on re-recording it with Ace and Peter...can you imagine Peter Criss trying to play this drum part?? And the two killer things about this song are those lyrics and Eric Singer's drum parts. Considering our current political climate this is the perfect song. "All you foreigners? And saviors? Go though the same door..." This is a vicious, brutal heavy metal attack!
OK, so I gotta start this with my personal biases - we all have them, don't deny: I consider the 1990s the worst decade for music in the Rock & Roll era. I think grunge is almost as stupid a term as hair metal and an even more stupid term than classic rock. And don't get me started on the term alternative. I mostly gave up on Pearl Jam after the first two records (which I do like) and a recent listen to In Utero reminded me that I don't care for it. That having been said, I am a fan of Soundgarden and Alice in Chains. Not that they would make my top 40 bands. I have never heard Carnival of Souls before. When Hate started, I wondered about all of the feedback and if I would like the song, but ultimately I did. Very heavy - the guitar is good, Gene's vocals fit the song, and Eric Singer's drum work was nice too. The melody worked for me overall - I'll give it a 7.2 out of 10.
By the late 80s, I wasn't listening to anything contemporary except for Flat Duo Jets, Pogues and Tom Waits... by '91, even though I was living in WA state for a brief period, I was totally unaware of grunge... Nirvana took off big time when I moved back to the hills of North Carolina, where I was only listening to blues and bluegrass (even mowing legendary flat picker Doc Watson's lawn)... I tell you this solely to illustrate that besides a handful of Cobain tunes, I wouldn't know grunge if it bit me on the a** (I did see Mudhoney a few years ago here in Helsinki; my friend at the gig expressed it best "they sound like a Doors tribute band trying out their own material")... so, I am actually able to approach CoS with absolutely no preconceived notions for good or bad. And what's so cool as I get into this album, is it's exactly what I was hoping it would be after recently discovering the pleasures of CotN and especially The Elder... a weird detour in their catalog - an outlier that sounds like nothing else they've done... no formula - at least according to their own lights - and a risk... and with grownup lyrics to boot (somebody said that earlier; I forget who, but kudos)... "Hate" itches that scratch in particular... as I've said before, I've preferred Gene's songs since the '70s so it's nice to have him back on track... and while it can be compared to "Unholy" in that it's A) heavy B) opening track for Gene, at least there's none of those awful gang vox on the chorus that I grew to detest as @GodShifter steered this boat through the perilous shoals of the '80s... that's what kept "Unholy" from being a bonafide classic in my book... if it had been the sole song of theirs with gang vox, I woulda loved it... but by '92 they had beat that poor horse to death and then some... thankfully, "Hate" doesn't... I digress... Gene delivers a cool vox... Bruce finally lays down some guitar that I find memorable... and Eric Singer is really the man for this albums... can't begin to imagine the other two drummers able to deliver in this context... I dig this...
Hate: Well, it's well played, the rhythm flows fairly well, Gene's in good voice, and while the song is overall listenable, it doesn't feel essential. I don't automatically go "I want to hear that again!", it's a copy of a copy of a copy. But it's passable.
Hate Gene's delivery sells the song although there isn't much of one there. One of the worst openers in the catalog (along with King of the Mountain and Hell of Hallelujah) and might be the worst Gene offering on here. The production isn't helping any and neither is the dumb intro. 4/10
Can't say I noticed a song, but too bad about the soloing and vocals. What's he saying - 'let me feel the cumstain'??? Regarding VV's soloing, do any musicians here understand his stream-of-consciousness widdly-wankery, because it makes no sense to me at all. Is there actually any method to his apparent madness? Foolishly, I forgot to hit pause after Euphoria finished, and it went into 'Get The Lead Out', which is worse, if anything. Looking at some of the comments though, I will say this: VV's fans, if a tad delusional, are nothing if not effusive. This made me chuckle: "This sounds like if Led Zeppelin were actually good. Zeppelin should listen and learn from VVV"
HATE Pretty much exactly what I was expecting. I played this 3x, about 15 minutes ago, and already I can't remember anything about it. Basically, there is no song here; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. IMO.
Each day while we are covering CARNIVAL OF SOULS, I'll post the lyrics to the song of the day. These are from the KissFAQ digital booklet, which can be found here: The KISSFAQ - Digital Booklet Archive Track One - "Hate"
Hate I'm going to try to approach all these songs on their own merits. For Hate, without the vocals it sounds nothing like KISS. That's fine, I'm just stating it. The intro/chorus riff isn't the kind of thing that they've normally written; they just don't write riffs like that. So this stuff is totally out of left field for being a KISS album. Change is good, though. It challenges us. And this song is certainly challenging for being the opening tune on a new KISS album. Gene's bass is pretty damn funky on this song which an interesting way to play on such a heavy song. Hate is right in Gene's wheelhouse vocally and attitude-wise. Eric plays the hell out of the song and I love that. Overall it's an average song for me. I don't love or 'hate' it, but it's solid. A good start for the album.
I definitely disagree with the notion that these songs don't sound good acoustically. Presented this way, you can see the really catchy and/or melodic song at the heart of it all. But I do agree about the difficulty of adapting many of Ace's songs acoustically. When I thought about it more, after posting last night, I realized that a few of these might not sound as good as I first thought. Much like how "Shock Me" just wasn't coming together when they tried it. I could still hear "Talk To Me" or "What's On Your Mind?" working, but maybe not the others. As I said, "Ozone" would be awesome, but there's no way at that point in time they'd present a song to the world with the lyrics "I'm the kind of guy, who likes getting high" over and over again!
It's funny you mention In Utero because I was trying to think of what that feedback reminded me of and that's what it was. I mean, feedback is feedback I guess..but still. That's what I was thinking of. I disagree with you on that album though. To me it's one of the best of the '90s. In fact I just listened to 'Milk It' now and oh boy did it sound good. Absolutely crushes 'Hate'. In my opinion anyway.
Ha! What? You mean I slave over a hot keyboard for over an hour and I can't sell you on this song? Truth is, I get it. Maybe there isn't a ton to the tune and, as people have said, it's just not a style that people can relate to for KISS, but that's been a problem for me since right after The Elder. I think, for me, I've always really liked heavy rock like this (stoner, doom, and aggro metal are big in my record collection) so I can accept this with no problem (is it KISS? Dunno, but that's what it says on the album cover). I was heavily into "grunge" at the time it flourished so I love all those bands that came out of the scene (except Pearl Jam) so there's that, too. I totally respect your opinion on "Hate" and if you don't like it; you don't. I don't know this album very well other than about three songs in, but I can tell you if you didn't like this one for whatever reason the next two are going to probably be bigger downers, but who knows as people latch onto to different things. That's one thing I'll say about this group: with few exceptions, people never fail to surprise me with their opinions. I think it's going to go one way and it goes the other which is quite refreshing if you really think about it.
