You read that right Peter Criss and Ace Frehley will be playing together at Creatures Fest and Vinnie Vincent has a NEW LP!! And of course we talk DESTROYER and we ask the question IS IT REALLY THAT GOOD?

Kisstorian Brothers

As I listen to it now, seemingly 100,00 years from 1979, it dawns on me that KISS‘s controversial release, Dynasty, is a direct result of the 4 solo albums, damn good and in many ways the band’s ‘White Album’; disjunct yet many splendored. Strong as it is, turns out that selling out is a ‘Dirty Livin’.

For all it’s detracting elements, Dynasty is time piece worth revisiting on so many levels, a pivotal moment in KISStory that sees the band at their apex staring into the abyss. In a mere 5 years, KISS had gone from a dirty underground leathered shock rock band with a demonic tinge, largely thanks to Simmons early incarnations, to the biggest fucking band in the world. ‘The Return of KISS’ in ’79 with Dynasty is mega-KISS fully mechanized for world domination, with a sure-fire disco hit for radio as the ace up their sleeves. ‘Beth’ lit the radio lamp, and others kept it afloat (‘Hard Luck Woman’, ‘Dr. Love’) but ‘I Was Made For Loving You’ signaled that KISS had no choice but to compete, something ironically no one believed they’d be able to do beyond the initial buzz. Dynasty proved all the early critics wrong and yet proved them all right: KISS was more a ‘business’ than a band, as they had suspected. By 1979, KISS had over-saturated the market with product and, ironically, become almost too good, and certainly too well packaged. In modern terms, KISS had been on an amazing run but were ‘played out’.

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