Hot in the Shade is the last album from KISS that was released in the 1980s decade. The 1980s started off very strong once you get Unmasked (1980) and Music From the Elder (1981) out of the way. When Vinnie Vincent entered the KISS fold in 1982 and started writing songs for the band, he gave the puttering out hard rock outfit two great albums. First with Creatures of the Night (1982) and the even better Lick It Up (1983), when they first decided to remove the make-up. KISS had then fired Vinnie Vincent for having the audacity to ask for more money for his contribution to the band’s new amazing success. Then in 1984 they released Animalize which was followed up by her sister Asylum which both fed off the previous success of Lick It Up and the removal of the make-up. The singles released were embarrassingly mediocre. KISS then become big MTV stars in 1987 with their album Crazy Nights. KISS follows the lead of lesser bands such as Bon Jovi and Poison in order to achieve this success and it worked enough to fool the record-buying public for a couple of weeks as this album sold modestly well.

For Hot in the Shade KISS now shake off their copycat mode and try to get back to the band it should be. Even Gene Simmons swears (again) that his contributions to KISS are solid efforts and unlike the previous three albums where he was too busy making movies to write decent songs. Of course he’s lying, he said the same thing when they released Crazy Nights too. Does he truly believe that the songs were his A material? Well, not in hindsight, as more recent interviews would suggest. So, it’s Paul Stanley to the rescue once again, and with the release of the first single/video Hide Your Heart it doesn’t look promising. Desmond Child and Holly Knight’s lyrics about a Romeo & Juliet like romance set in NY with gangs and guns are insipid and unconvincing, plus the music from Paul Stanley is just more of the same crappy stuff we’ve been hearing for the past five years anyway. Former guitarist Ace Frehley even had the bright idea to cover the song on his Trouble Walking CD.

However, the second video released was really good. It was for the song Rise To It, a triumph for the then recent KISS catalog, I’m surprised KISS doesn’t play this at their farewell concerts these days. The track starts off with some bluesy steel guitar work which then explodes into a hard rocking good time that is so fine that it takes you back to the days of classic KISS. The video was great too, as we see Paul & Gene wearing the make-up for the first time in seven years. KISS fans like me were beside themselves with glee as they again beheld KISS in make-up, with new costumes and everything. The band followed up with another winner in the form of a beautiful acoustic ballad Forever, a song that Paul Stanley had co-written with Michael Bolton. Even Bruce Kulick contributes some amazing guitar work in the form of a tasty acoustic guitar solo. Since then, KISS fans all over the world had adopted Forever as their wedding song. The lyrics and music are some of the best ever put forth from KISS. This song helped with the sales of the album, and the video was played on MTV every twenty minutes.

Unfortunately the remainder of this CD couldn’t compare with the fantastic singles. The most ridiculous song has to be Read My Body. Paul Stanley attempts injecting rap (the first was All Hell’s Breaking Loose from the Lick It Up album) into one of his songs. This wouldn’t even make a funny joke, but they aren’t kidding! It even makes Gene Simmons cruddy songs look good. Each of Gene’s songs (Betrayed, Prisoner of Love, Love’s A Slap in the Face, Cadillac Dreams, The Street Giveth and the Street Taketh Away and Boomerang) should have been left off the album, the ratio would have been much more favorable. Each song sounds like the last one with the exception of Boomerang which is almost passable because of the fine drumming from Eric and the surprisingly good guitar work from Bruce. There is one last positive note to make about this album as it marks drummer Eric Carr’s singing debut with his song Little Caesar. The song is okay at best, and it’s kind of cool that Eric got to sing his own song before he left us and went to rock and roll heaven.

Unfortunately, for the most part, Hot in the Shade sucks. Rise To It and Forever are super oddities in the sea of confusing sewer water. Little Caesar is also kind of cool, but not to listen to, just to have for nostalgic reasons. Eric Carr went out with a less than mediocre album as his last. He was seen in the God Gave Rock and Roll to You video from 1991, but Eric Singer is actually playing drums. It's too bad because it would have been a much better swan song than Hot in the Shade.




KISS
Hot in the Shade
Released: 1989
Members: Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Eric Carr & Bruce Kulick
Rating: 2 ½ stars

the songs

1. Rise to It
2. Betrayed
3. Hide Your Heart
4. Prisoner of Love
5. Read My Body
6. Love’s A Slap In the Face
7. Forever
8. Silver Spoon
9. Cadillac Dreams
10. King of Hearts
11. The Street Giveth and the Street Taketh Away
12. You Love Me to Hate You
13. Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell
14. Little Caesar
15. Boomerang


Recommended: No