The Creatures of the Night Are Big Wimps

Overall Album Score: 5.6 out of 10

In spite of the fact that Rehley Ace appears on the album cover (he's the constipated-looking guy on the bottom right), he's not actually on the album. He had quit the band and some dude named Vinnie Vincent took over guitar duties. (Of course, Creatures of the Night is an album that Ace probably would have enjoyed recording, because it's a so-called "comeback" album ... but he wanted to leave the band. So there was that!)

And, yep, this is Kiss's second chance to "return-to-form" from that weirdo art-rock discourse of Music From "The Elder", which I rather enjoyed, but nobody else did, apparently. And we're back to the stupid banal hard rock tunes.

Fortunately, at this point in the music world (1982), pretty much every hard rock outfit was stupid and banal, and that made Kiss blend in rather nicely. They don't pull any more stupidity than the average hard rock band did of that time era, and so this music isn't more banal than necessary.

It's still banal, though. Pooey! I'm going back to ABBA.

Overall Album Score: 5.6 out of 10 (Not only has Kiss finally reached the 80s, their banal style of hard rock music sounds normal.)

Average Song Score: 6.4 (This isn't bad for a Kiss offering. But ... Kiss will offer you poop every time you ask fer something.)

Album Tilt: 5.5 (Hmmhmhmmhmmmm.)

Artist Rating: 5.0 (No explanation necessary! There wasn't even a non-verbal necessary here!)

Track Reviews

Creatures of the Night 7/10

This song isn't bad! It is your typical hard-rock/heavy-metal, and this being the 1980s, I think you can get a pretty good idea of how stupid this song is going to be. So let's forget about that and concentrate on the fact that I find that this un-adventurous, derivative song isn't offensive to my ears ... the melody is good ... and the band, with nearly 10 years of experience now, turned into wizards with their instruments. The instrumentals were solid! But it's really too banal to be considered anything more than mild-mannered heavy metal doo doo.

Saint and Sinner 6/10

Really, if Kiss wants to make a song REALLY ROCK, then it's got to be fast. None of this mid-tempoed mumbo jumbo! Gene Simmons' pen to this one doesn't even make it stand above the previous Paul Stanley one. (My main man from the last album is slipping!) Plus, this song is too long for its own good, although it doesn't overstay its welcome at an excruciating level. (It was co-penned by the band's soon-to-be-new guitarist, Vinnie Vincent (Cusano).

Keep Me Comin' 7.5/10

This is actually pretty good! ... It's still really too banal for me to give it anything more than this 7.5 ... But I genuinely like it! This is just like Led Zeppelin! The guitar chops ... the melody ... the chanting chorus ... Duh, it's not original. But I don't care! I'd much rather Kiss act like Led Zeppelin than Kiss acting like Kiss. (This is a Paul Stanley co-penned song ... could this guy be undergoing a turnaround? ... or is the guy he's co-penning these songs with really awesome or something?)

Rock & Roll Hell 7/10

This song was co-penned by someone with the last name of "Vallance." Would this be "Liberty" Vallance? If it is, is Gene Simmons the man who shot him ... and then gave him credit for co-writing this song? ... Why are the Gene Simmons co-penned songs paling compared to the Paul Stanley ones all of the sudden? Apparently, this song was written about Ace Frehley ... I don't care enough about it to analyze the lyrics or anything. I won't do anything I don't want to until someone pays me for it.

Danger 6/10

Really ... the 80s seem to be treating Kiss well. I remember hating these stupid Kiss songs much worse than I hate this one. The melody here isn't catchy whatsoever, but at least the song doesn't quite have me beating my head against blunt instruments or anything like that. Um ... but this song is quite dumb.

I Love it Loud 7/10

Dude. This song is as dumb as everything else on this album. I'm giving this one a 'five' because it's not only dumb, it's also as obnoxious as hell. (It also a bit too much like that Joan Jett song "I Love Rock 'N' Roll" ... or it tries to recreate the feel ... and it's just weak.)

I Still Love You 3/10

Now this "romantic" Paul Stanley ballad is utter muck. It's waaaaaaaay too long as well, clocking in at over six minutes! ... I guess asking Kiss to go for a whole album without making something totally worthless was just too much to ask.

Killer 7.5/10

Hey!!!! This song is cool!!!!! Things have returned to normal, anyway. The last song, the dumbest thing on the album, is followed by this rather cool heavy-metal ditty. Whooptie dip!

War Machine 6.5/10

This heavy metal song is so exciting that it'll probably put you straight to sleep. But this song isn't bad or anything. It's just STUPID. But that's not surprising. Bring on the stupidity!

The Creatures of the Night might bite your flipping heads off if you don't send me comments about your thoughts of this album here!!!