KISS — Rock And Roll Over (review)

KISS — Rock And Roll Over album cover Album · 1976 · Hard Rock Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
AtomicCrimsonRush
This is one of the great Kiss albums with fantastic production and some of the all time great Kiss songs. It was recorded at the Star Theatre because the band wanted to capture the live sound particularly on the drums, where Peter Criss decided it wasn’t good enough so he recorded all the drum tracks in a bathroom, and had to communicate via a video-link with the other members. That’s how much they cared about grabbing the sound the crowds hungered for, who loved their live shows.

Simmons has some awesome songs on this particularly ‘Calling Dr. Love’, ‘Ladies Room’, and the glorious riffy ‘Love 'em and Leave 'em’. I love the lead break with Ace burning up the fretwork.

Stanley is fabulous on ‘I want You’ and ‘Take Me’ which features some memorable Ace riffs. The lyrics were bawdy with tons of double entendres but as a young Kiss addict I had no idea what was meant when Stanley sings, “put your hand in my pocket, grab onto my rocket...” Ah well, the innocent 70s.

Peter Criss is at his best on this with my alltime favourite Criss track, ‘Baby Driver’, a raspy riffing rocker with some great straight forward lyrics. “Go baby driver keep driving on down the road, ooh what a rider, carrying such a heavy load...” Of course he was more known for the massive hit single on the album, the melancholy ballad, ‘Hard Luck Woman. If it sounds like Rod Stewart the reason is because Stanley actually wrote it for Stewart originally. I thought this was a good single at the time, but have little time for it now, similar to ‘Beth’. In any case, it did well on the charts and once again people were starting to take notice of Kiss as more than just a crazy hard rock costumed band.

This album did go to Double Platinum and for the first time gold. Interesting cover became an iconic image for the band, embazoned on posters and T shirts everywhere even to this day. The album cover for “Sonic Boom” is similar because the same artist was used Michael Doret.

Overall this album is an excellent Kiss treasure, with a hard rocking list of classics. There is not a bad song on it and it is legendary among the Kiss Army of fans.
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