The Year Of KISS: Carnival Of Souls: The Final Sessions (1997)

“Faded smiles behind dark shades….”

Although 1992’s Revenge was positively received, KISS was starting to fade as a mainstream band. By the time the group returned to the studio to record their next album, Carnival Of Souls: The Final Sessions, the music that they inspired and ultimately embraced in the 1980’s, glam and pop rock, was all but dead thanks to the newest sensation, grunge. As KISS has been known to do over the years, they attempted to morph into their own version of grunge with Carnival Of Souls. The results were….mixed.

KISS started recording Carnival in November of 1995, just a few months after their appearance on the wildly popular MTV acoustic series, Unplugged. It was also on Unplugged where Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley reunited with founding members Peter Criss and Ace Frehley. The reunion proved to be popular with fans and would ultimately culminate in the band’s Reunion Tour. Both of the other members of the band at the time, lead guitarist Bruce Kulick and drummer Eric Singer, were unaware of the reunion plans and weren’t told about them until just before the Unplugged performance according to interviews with both Kulick and Singer over the years. KISS finished production of Carnival in February of 1996 but due to the popularity of the return of Ace and Peter, Gene and Paul pursued the Reunion tour with them and shelved the album. The band’s Unplugged performance would be released on compact disc and on DVD in March of 1996 while Carnival collected dust.

Despite the album being shut down so that the Reunion Tour could go ahead, KISS fans managed to get their hands on bootleg copies and began sharing it. This move forced KISS’ hand and they eventually released the album with little fanfare and no supporting tour in October of 1997. Critics attacked the album for being a desperate attempt by KISS to remain relevant. Others said that it was just one more in a long line of KISS albums that tried to emulate popular trends of the time. In this case the trend was grunge and while the band gave their best effort, the album just couldn’t find the right audience.

The album featured twelve tracks. It is the longest album by the band despite having fewer songs than Hot In The Shade. Only one song was under four minutes long and five tracks were over five minutes long. The lone single, Jungle, clocked in at 6:49. It peaked at #7 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart but failed to make an impact elsewhere. The album broke the top twenty in Finland and reached #27 on the US Billboard 200.

Track Listing:

1. Hate
2. Rain
3. Master & Slave
4. Childhood’s End
5. I Will Be There
6. Jungle (Single)
7. In My Head
8. It Never Goes Away
9. Seduction of the Innocent
10. I Confess
11. In The Mirror
12. I Walk Alone

Personnel: Paul Stanley (lead and backing vocals, rhythm guitar, 12 string acoustic guitar, ukulele), Bruce Kulick (lead and backing vocals, lead guitars, some acoustic and bass guitar), Gene Simmons (lead and backing vocals, bass), Eric Singer (drums, backing vocals)

Additional personnel included Carole Keiser, the Crossroads Boys Choir, and Nick Simmons (Gene’s son) on backing vocals on Childhood’s End. Songwriting credits include six for Paul Stanley, nine for Bruce Kulick, six for Gene Simmons, three for Steve Van Zen, six for Curtis Cuomo, and one each for Jaime St. James, Ken Tamplin, and future KISS lead guitarist, Tommy Thayer. Gene and Paul co-produced the album with Toby Wright.

This is one of my least favorite KISS albums. It’s an especially ill-fitting album for Paul Stanley’s voice. He sounds best on pop and hard rock tracks. His vocals are significantly restrained on this album. Almost all of his songs are slow, plodding dirges that limit his punchy vocal stylings. He only lets it rip for a little while on Master & Slave, but none of his songs are that notable. Gene’s voice is much better suited for grunge music and it definitely shows on this album. Although I am not much of a fan of any of these tracks, Hate and Childhood’s End stand out from the pack. Both songs feature Gene on vocals. This is also the only KISS album with Bruce Kulick on lead vocals. He mans the mic on I Walk Alone. That track features the best guitar solo on the album.

Over the years Bruce Kulick has been the most vocal supporter for the album. That might be due to the fact that he co-wrote so many of the album’s tracks and that he finally got to sing a lead vocal on a KISS album. It could also be because this album was released at such a terrible time for Kulick and Eric Singer. When Peter Criss and Ace Frehley ultimately left the band again (multiple times), only Eric Singer ever returned. Kulick never came back as a regular member of the band and, in my opinion, that’s a shame. Kulick has also been relatively quiet as to why he has never returned to the group. He makes occasional appearances on KISS Kruises and seems to have a good rapport with all of the members of the band past and present. He seems to be especially close with Eric Singer and Ace Frehley. He is currently a member of Grand Funk Railroad, has released his own solo work, and was also in the band Union.

Carnival Of Souls: The Final Sessions is a black mark for KISS in my opinion. Its bungled release, boring (and very un-KISS like) grunge tone, and lack of a tour made it extremely forgettable. It saw the permanent exit of Bruce Kulick as a member of the group, left Eric Singer in limbo, and made Gene and Paul look quite a bit selfish as they put their focus on the Reunion Tour. KISS would definitely recover, but the band was about to embark on a long run of no new material and a ton of nostalgia circuit tours.

Thanks for checking out my post. Next week I’ll be looking at the “Reunion” album, Psycho Circus. We’ve only got three more Fridays in the Year of KISS!