Carnival of Souls: The Final Sessions

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Shortly before Kiss embarked on its nostalgic, highly profitable reunion tour of 1996, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley seemed to be planning a more contemporary route to world domination. Their album Carnival of Souls was recorded in 1995, prior to original Kissmen Ace Frehley's and Peter Criss's reentry into the band, and it sounds more like Seattle revisited than "Detroit Rock City." The album's lumbering rhythms, and ex-guitarist Bruce Kulick's quavering string bends, are reminiscent of Badmotorfinger-era Soundgarden, and Stanley's vocals wobble and wail, stopping just short of rocketing into a high-pitch falsetto. As derivative as it is, however, Carnival of Souls is pretty gripping. Sure, the ballads are clunkers, but many of the other tracks are undeniably compelling, alternating between atmospheric verses and bracing, teen-spirited choruses. It's just a shame that Kiss's renewed emphasis on recapturing the box office with 20-year-old material will probably prevent the band from growing and evolving even further. --Jon Wiederhorn

Tracks:

Hate
Rain
Master & Slave
Childhood's End
I Will Be There
Jungle
In My Head
It Never Goes Away
Seduction Of The Innocent
I Confess
In The Mirror
I Walk Alone

Amazon.com

Shortly before Kiss embarked on its nostalgic, highly profitable reunion tour of 1996, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley seemed to be planning a more contemporary route to world domination. Their album Carnival of Souls was recorded in 1995, prior to original Kissmen Ace Frehley's and Peter Criss's reentry into the band, and it sounds more like Seattle revisited than "Detroit Rock City." The album's lumbering rhythms, and ex-guitarist Bruce Kulick's quavering string bends, are reminiscent of Badmotorfinger-era Soundgarden, and Stanley's vocals wobble and wail, stopping just short of rocketing into a high-pitch falsetto. As derivative as it is, however, Carnival of Souls is pretty gripping. Sure, the ballads are clunkers, but many of the other tracks are undeniably compelling, alternating between atmospheric verses and bracing, teen-spirited choruses. It's just a shame that Kiss's renewed emphasis on recapturing the box office with 20-year-old material will probably prevent the band from growing and evolving even further. --Jon Wiederhorn

Customer Reviews:

Great Attempt At Seatle Sound and Great Kiss Album.......2007-07-04

This album is an underated gem. It captures a different side of Kiss that has never been captured before, dark and gritty. I wish they would've continued this course. A lot of the songs on tis album put me in the mindset of Alice In Chains or Sound Garden, which Kiss pulled off this much better in my opinon. If you like Kiss dark and heavy then go ahead and indulge in this treat

Carnival of Souls = The Elder of the 90s.......2007-06-07

I really like this album. The problem is maybe it's too good and too different from classic Kiss. Sound familiar? Yes, just like The Elder. The music isn't bad, just very different for Kiss. And this time, it's very very heavy and it does sound derivitive of Alice in Chains or Soundgarden. My favorite is Paul's "Jungle". And that one received a lot of airplay at least on stations where I lived in PA. Most of Gene's songs are quite good. "Hate" is like a faster "Unholy". But I like "Childhood's End" - that sounds like a distant relative to "Goin Blind". "Rain" and "Master and Slave" are very cool hard rockin songs from Paul. Had the reunion not happened, I'm not sure how this album would have really been received. It's a shame it didn't come out in like 93 or 94 when it could have had a shot. But by 1997, everyone was Kiss Make-up crazy and this record got lost in the shuffle. But I give them kudos for trying something creative and really experimenting.

Industrial Grunge Ahoy.......2007-05-11

This is possibly KISS' most ummm...... "interesting" albums yet. They've decided to try to blend their music for the style that was popular at the time, which was Grunge, Industrial, and Punk. They do manage to get some of their classic sounds in, but not much. This earns them three stars, plus another star for featuring Bruce Kulick on lead vocals on the track "I Walk Alone".

Black sheep can still shine.......2007-03-29

I remember seeing this album in stores when it first came out...I had gotten into Kiss about 5 years prior and actually had the song "Detroit Rock City" stuck in my head all the time. I had not yet heard much from KISS aside from early albums which captivated me. I looked at this album and it was almost scary...the band looked so edgy and had this hint of evil..then I looked at the track list and put the album back on the shelf. I walked home with thoughts of the album but it faded from memory.

about a year or 2 later, my uncle gave me his copy of Revenge and after listening to it I asked myself. "Why are they doing stuff like Psycho Circus right now when there is stuff like THIS out there?!"

fast forward to about 2004 and my friend let me borrow his copy of Carnival of souls following a long discussion about KISS and their music. He said that if I liked Revenge, I would probably like COS. I took it home and after listening to it, I actually got angry with the band. I thought "How could they record something so dark and not promote it?" From the opening screaches of "Hate" to the twisted rhythms of "Childhood's End" to the Premonition of a song known as "I walk alone", This album was a masterpiece. I strongly feel that the direction the last 2 non-makeup albums were taking could have lead to a resurgence that could have been even bigger than the return of the makeup.

Anybody who liked Revenge will almost undoubtably like this album.

Very solid effort in a completely new direction.......2007-01-06

I recently have gotten into Kiss and love their glory days back in the 70s with CD's such as their debut, Destroyer and Rock and Roll Over among others. However, recently I thought I'd give some of their newER stuff a try and lo and behold, I loved REVENGE. It was an album of a definite new, rougher attitude, but then I ran across this album and to be honest with you, when I saw it at the CD store, I got this bad feeling. The cover just seemed more like a extras disc but it looked like new songs, so I was like what the hell? I'll get it anyways.

I was very pleased to see that this album was very solid and how they managed to pull it off without much of their previous sound, as many of you know this is their grunge album. The interesting thing is why they did this since it came out in 1997 when grunge was virtually dead but it is a success nonetheless. Very heavy stuff but also still has the Kiss sound. I reccomend this CD highly to any Kiss fan or any grunge fan for that matter.

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