Black Diamond: Excerpts
Excerpt from Chapter Seven, "Success is the best REVENGE":
"Head/Carnival of Souls/Seduction of the Innocent/etc., etc."

Peter returned to Los Angeles to work on material for CRISS in hopes of going into the studios sometime in November. Ace, meanwhile, had put together a three-track demo that he was just starting to pass around to the record labels in hopes of landing another record deal. As to the current members of KISS, they were lined up to go into the studios in November 1995 to start on the studio album that had been promised since 1992.

The album was co-produced by the band and Alice In Chains producer, Toby Wright, and took roughly six weeks to record. The shortness of time was not only due to the band wanting to work on other projects, but also because many of the tracks recorded for the album had been sitting around for months, sometime years, before finally being recorded in the studios. The album itself was mostly written by Gene and Paul, with Bruce not only co-writing nine of the tracks, but also singing the next to last song on the album, "I Walk Alone." This was to be Bruce's first lead vocal on an album, although it was not his original intention to do so.

"I sang on the demo," Bruce told the fanzine KISS_CHIKARA in July 1996. "It gave me an opportunity just to show Gene a new arrangement . . .not that I was trying to say, 'I wanna sing.' But, obviously, when we got closer to do the new record I asked him, 'Would you mind if I gave it a show?' And he was like, 'Yeah, go for it.' So that's how it all came about."

The album, still not titled as of August 1996, had been going under different names in fandom -- from HEAD (a title Gene suggested for the album in 1994 and which had previously been used by the Monkees for their film and soundtrack album from 1968), CARNIVAL OF SOULS to SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT -- but in even indecisive was Polygram/Mercury's feelings about releasing the album once they received the finished product in December 1995.

The album was a dark, brooding continuation of the experimental alternative metal sound they had tried with REVENGE, and included such tracks as "Hate" and "You Confess." A sound that had not done well for the band or the label back in 1992 when REVENGE quickly slumped in sales after a first initial burst; now it was nearly four years later and the band was offering more of the same. More importantly, the reunion and planned MTV UNPLUGGED album and video had also hit a snag which threaten the label's schedule for both releases.

. . .With both Bruce and Eric no longer in the band, the question as to if and when the "Carnival of Souls" album will be released is pretty much resolved. Or, as one of the two stated when asked what will happen to that completed album that was already in the can: "It's in the can alright -- the garbage can."