Mercury Records - 1997
5.5/10
Going nearly the rest of the ‘90s without an album, Kiss would take the time to do some live recordings, including an acoustic show that would feature the lineup of the time and guest appearances from Ace and Peter. By the time they got around to doing another album, grunge had basically been finished. Did this stop them from evolving their Revenge sound into a full grunge effort? Nope! Carnival Of Souls: The Final Sessions sees the band completely cast themselves into a dark, distorted Stone Temple Pilots-meets-Helmet type record, likely the most far removed disc from anything they’d ever do.
Naturally, Gene Simmons has a voice a little more fit for this, with deeper snarls matching the heavy distortions and beefy attitude. Strong bass presence lays foundation for much of this, most evident in the long number “Jungle.” Yet, I think Paul may have the best song with “Master & Slave,” utilizing the raw atmosphere and suspenseful drive to deliver a crushing blow under higher, intense vocals. Funny enough, “Childhood’s End” is one of the few warmer songs, using clean licks with Gene fronting things. This is also one of the better tracks. Conceptually, it’s neat that the band took this little leap of faith.
The issue is, we really did not need an hour of this. Carnival Of Souls: The Final Sessions needs time to grow on you as is, not only because of when it hit and who made the music, but there also just isn’t a lot of layers to it. True, there may be a couple of songs worth digging up, but having to go through so much to get to them makes a full listen feel very tiring. I’m not going to pretend that it’s musically bad at all, but good lord, it’s way too much for what it is.
There’s probably a reason why this album never had a tour following it, and the songs have never been performed live. There had apparently also been bootleg copies floating around of some songs before its release. If I know Paul and Gene, this alone may have been their reasoning to get something out; can’t have a bunch of snotty kids making money off of their music! Despite a few good tracks and a nice idea, the whole thing feels tired, like nobody really wanted to do it. The no-makeup era did not go out with a bang.
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