KISS - Music From The Elder

180-gram gatefold jacket LP

First vinyl edition with the concept album track sequence

Kiss celebrates its 40th anniversary and its induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame with a series of individual 180-gram vinyl reissues from the band's celebrated catalog, including their 1998 effort Psycho Circus on vinyl for the very first time! 

Among the titles returning to record store shelves are the band's self-titled debut and sophomore Hotter Than Hell albums (both from 1974) as well as their double-live 1975 breakthrough album Alive! - which was already reissued back in 2008. Also arriving are 1975's Dressed To Kill, 1976's Destroyer, 1979's Dynasty, 1980's Unmasked, 1983's Lick it Up, 1984's Animalize and 1992's Revenge. Look also for 1976's Rock And Roll Over, 1981's Music From The Elder, 1989's Hot In The Shade, 1987's Crazy Nights and 1997's Carnival Of Souls. 

By the end of 1980, Kiss knew that their next album had to be a strong one, a glorious return to hard rock à la their classic Destroyer. New drummer Eric Carr had refueled the band's desire to rock, and the quartet began working on a straight-ahead rock album in early 1981. Midway through, the band felt that they were rewriting past songs, and the sessions were aborted. Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley then came up with the idea of recording a concept album, based on a mythical original story by Simmons about a boy on a quest to defeat some evil power from taking over the universe. It worked for Pink Floyd and twice for the Who, so why not Kiss?

Destroyer producer Bob Ezrin was back and encouraged the band's concept album idea (against both Ace Frehley's and Carr's wishes). Simmons and Stanley had high hopes for Music from "The Elder" (such as a movie, an elaborate tour, a follow-up record, etc.), that didn't materialize. The difficulty was that the music is totally uncharacteristic of Kiss — it resembles heavy prog rock for the most part rather than the hard/heavy sounds of Destroyer or Creatures Of The Night. The songs that differed from Kiss' heavy approach are well arranged, and most are powerful pieces of music.

 

1. Fanfare

2. Just A Boy

3. Odyssey

4. Only You

5. Under The Rose

6. Dark Light

7. A World Without Heroes

8. The Oath

9. Mr. Blackwell

10. Escape From The Island

11. I

Customer Reviews (5.00 Stars) 1 person(s) rated this product.

Is this the correct track listing? posted on 05/03/2014 5 Stars Do we know if this is going to be a gate fold edition?

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