Psycho Xerxes

Overall Album Score: 5.8 out of 10

After that disastrous Revenge album from 1992, Kiss wisely stayed out of album-production. And they probably would have stayed out of album production if members of the original band didn't suddenly get struck with money hunger pains and decided to reunite in 1996 and do a tour. And still, they got even more money hunger pains and decided to just go ahead and add on a brand new studio album with that two years later. And another tour.

Ohh! But this album really isn't that bad. It's certainly better than Revenge. It's almost two times better. I enjoyed two songs on here. The title track is good commercial metal and I also enjoyed Gene Simmons' "Journey of 1,000 Years," which has some nice string sections. There's also the regular old Kiss style of BLAH. Some of it is bad. Some of it isn't bad. And then there's two pretty rancid stabs at 90s pop. You can leave those in the garbage where you found them! Nobody needs Kiss doing 90s pop! Nobody even needs Britney Spears doing 90s pop.

So, Psycho Circus isn't as bad as it sounds. ... Well, of course, the album is bad, but for Kiss, it's decent.

Overall Album Score: 5.8 out of 10 (Surprisingly, the 1998 Kiss reunion album nearly passes. There's a small handful of good songs amidst typical Kiss rubbish and failed stabs at pop.)

Average Song Score: 6.3 (This is mostly garbage, but there are a few worthwhile picks in here for Kiss.)

Album Tilt: 5.5 (This album is unfocused and out-of-control. But I guess that also keeps things diverse.)

Artist Rating: 5.5 (Kiss was never artistically impressive ... and you wouldn't expect them to learn artistic integrity during their 1998 reunion!)

Track Reviews

Psycho Circus 8/10

This song does sound like a Kiss reunion. Not only does it have that goofy 70s vibe about it, but it has lyrics like "Hello! Here I am!" and "I've waited for this night to come!" (Note that those lyric "excerpts" aren't exact ... I'm not much in the mood for looking up Kiss lyrics at the moment.) Surprisingly, other than being generally banal, I can't find much wrong with this song. The tune is actually pretty good. The instrumentation is very polished and commercial ... which, in my opinion, sounds much better than they did in the 70s anyway with their no-talent shenanigans. Go figure.

Within 7/10

Well, the fact the song takes nearly a minute to actually begin doesn't help. When the song does start up, it's very banal ... the tune isn't that good, and the "ballsy" feel of it sounds faked. Blah. (Although, there's like two melody lines here. Since when did Kiss ever try being innovative? ... Interesting. Just for this, I'm giving it a 7.) It's not really that bad, anyway. Kiss has done a lot worse, I'll tell ya that!

I Pledge Allegiance to the State of Rock & Roll 7/10

Phew... This song has one of those titles that's really stupid but funny at the same time (although, it was probably a take off of AC/DC's For Those About to Rock...). Anyway, for some reason, this isn't a bad song either. It's definitely POPPY METAL (take it or leave it), but it's listenable. The melody isn't too awful and ... by and large the whole thing is alright.

Into the Void 6.5/10

You know what? This is almost a good song, too. It has that whole metal-pop thing going for it. The melody could have used more hooks, and the instrumentation could have tried to be something other than the ordinary 'ballbreaking' heavy metal stuff, but whatever. This doesn't make me want to beat my own brains out or anything.

We Are One 6/10

Okay ... Kiss are going too poppy here for anyone's taste. But at least they're not being totally stupid. There's a general melody here. This song still sucks, though. Nobody needs Kiss doing their regular stuff; nobody needs Kiss doing pop.

You Wanted the Best 4/10

Finally ... the first big clunker. The good news is the singing isn't that bad. They might have gotten better at singing. The manufactured guitar solo toward the end of it isn't unentertaining.

Raise Your Glasses 7/10

This song reminds me of a couple other songs ... one of them is "Beds are Burning" by Midnight Oil. I don't know what the other song is. Anyway, this song isn't too awful. It might steal from other songs, but they stole some decent melody. The instrumentation was a little too over-the-top, though. You really can't expect Kiss to ever have really innovative tastes in their instrumentation!

I Finally Found My Way 5/10

Oh my gooooooooooooshhhhhhh! This song sounds like a cheesy version of a Randy Newman song or something. This is soooo cheesy! It's so ridiculous hearing them sing this song, too. They can't sing a stupid song like this. They should have kidnapped Anne Marie and made her sing this. Or they should have changed the lyrics and gave it to a Christian contemporary singer.

Dreamin' 4/10

Phh! We're back to the good old stupid hard crap rock Kiss from the days of yore. This song is stupid, banal, and apart from generally not being TOTAL CRAP (with capital letters), there's nothing really going for it.

Journey of 1,000 Years 8/10

Good old Gene Simmons. He's not really a good songwriter, but throughout the history of Kiss, he's been the only one who ever tried approaching the realm of creativity in a meaningful way. This is a pretty good song. I like the violin strings. That makes the song pretty interesting to listen to.

Kiss fans send your PSYCHOBABBLE here.