Kiss - Destroyer (1976)

Destroyer or the first successful studio album by the infamous four New-Yorkers in make-up and high heels.

After getting a smash hit with the live version of Rock And Roll All Nite off the album Alive!, a classic that should be reviewed here soon, the band headed back to the studios, working with producer Bob Ezrin, producer of Lou Reed and Alice Cooper, and who will later produce Pink Floyd's classic The Wall. The first single to be released, before the album comes out, is the classic Kiss anthem Detroit Rock City, with a little Peter Criss' song as the B-Side, Beth, a song just thrown there to make Peter happy but which will turn out being the actual hit single. Other classics on this album are God Of Thunder (which was to become the Demon's anthem, having him perform his bass solo with blood drolling/spitting before the song during concerts), the anthemic Shout It Out Loud and Do You Love Me (which Nirvana covered during their MTV Unplugged performance), but some hidden gems are to be found on this one as well, like Flaming Youth, Great Expectations (featuring a children's choir), King Of The Night Time World, which has rarely been heard separated from Detroit Rock City, or Sweet Pain which had Hollywood Vampyres' guitarist Dick Wagner on lead instead of Ace Frehley, who was quite unhappy with working with Ezrin. Tracklisting goes:

A1. Detroit Rock City

A2. King Of The Night Time World

A3. God Of Thunder

A4. Great Expectations

B1. Flaming Youth

B2. Sweet Pain

B3. Shout It Out Loud

B4. Beth

B5. Do You Love Me ?

Out of all the Kiss albums, this one could be the most influential and is often mentionned as a big favorite of the Kiss Army, along with Alive! (1975), Rock And Roll Over (1976) or Creatures Of The Night (1982), which I may discuss soon here as well. Personally, I think it's among the best albums Kiss has ever recorded, a very essential piece of music. I do own 2 copies of this one: a french pressing by Vogue and a german pressing by EMI Electrola which has an altered logo (see picture).