Kiss - Dressed to Kill
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CD Details
Artist: KissEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 1997-07-15
Music Label: Island / Mercury
Soundtracks:
- Room Service
- Two Timer
- Ladies In Waiting
- Getaway
- Rock Bottom
- C'mon And Love Me
- Anything For My Baby
- She
- Love Her All I Can
- Rock And Roll All Night
Music reviews of Dressed to Kill
Music Review: Dressed To Kill (1975)
Rating: 3 Stars
I give this album 5 stars for its recording, which is certainly one of the best sounding KISS albums ever released. Clean and tight, the whole album is a mini-studio masterpiece, and worthy of any remastering that can be done to it. But it doesn't really need it, it's a superb sounding album.
I give it 3 stars for its material though.
If the preceding album Hotter Than Hell(1974) had sounded like Dressed To Kill, you would have a benchmark of a great KISS album that all others could be compared to. There's 10 songs on Hotter Than Hell, and there are 10 songs that are great, let down by engineering and recording. There aren't as many to choose from on Dressed To Kill, but it does sound great regardless.
I'm not all that brushed up on Kiss History to know. I know enough that by 1976, people listed as KISS members weren't always on that album, but if there was a problem before this, maybe it shows up on Dressed To Kill. One thing that's very noticeable is that Simmons and Frehley take a backseat to Paul Stanley on this album, and I think it remained that way until the original group became defunct. I say this because I don't hear Simmons and Frehley coming up with as great material as they did on the first two albums, and Stanley supplies some good, but filler material in this absence. And they never were the same.
Despite Simmons 'sleazy tongue-in-cheek side', what he had provided KISS on their first two albums were some of their best riffs, and to my ears, he's the better singer of the Stanley & Simmons partnership. What he lacks lyrically, and what his persona provided as possible subject matter, is truly made up for with some of the meanest, and riff heavy material KISS has had. On Dressed To Kill, 'Two Timer', and 'Ladies In Waiting' are Simmons writing by the numbers, and this is where he heads for the next few years of KISS's rise. He comes up with some great tracks later on in their catalogue (Destroyer through Unmasked), but the majority tend to be Simmons working at 50%.
With Frehley is a similar situation. On the first and second albums, he wrote KISS 'standards', like 'Cold Gin' and 'Parasite'. By 1976, he seems to disappear almost entirely from writing for KISS at all, only to come back in 1977 with 'Shock Me' (singing his own songs for the first time), and in 1978 with 'Rocket Ride', and the must have 1978 solo album he did. But when it comes to Dressed To Kill, 'Getaway' is probably one of Frehley's most obscure songs. Sung by Peter Criss, it's probably Frehley's least known KISS track, his most ''unsuccessful'' (whatever that means), but it sounds like he put his all into the guitar solo. It sounds different than every other solo on this album. It's not a bad song by any means, and surrounded by better material it wouldn't sound as 'filler' as it sounds on DTK compared to his earlier material. Both Simmons and Frehley are a bit of a let down on this album, apart from 'She' (by Simmons and Coronel) which gets 5 stars, and is worth the purchase of this album, along with the 'classic' 'Rock and Roll All Nite' of course.
Another highlight is 'Rock Bottom' by Frehley and Stanley. Frehley's acoustic intro is much like what he would do on his own solo album with 'Fractured Mirror', and you have to wonder if whatever happened between 1975 and 1976, maybe indicated Frehley should have gone solo much earlier than 1978, because he had a lot going for him talent-wise. Stanley's contribution is one of the best songs on the album, and would sit just as well on the first two albums.
But then you get his other material, which just isn't as strong. 'Love Her All I Can' and 'Rock Bottom' are his two strongest songs on here, but the other material used to fill up the album just don't measure up to those two, and it's exactly where you need a Simmons or Frehley song equal to Staney's best to make something as good as Hotter Than Hell. Whatever happened I don't know, maybe they were just tired from slogging it out on the road. But whatever happened, it shows up on this album, and Stanley's dominance of the KISS writing chores begins to surface here. And Frehley's disappearance only to emerge about 10x times better than his band, and Simmons colouring by numbers, with the occasional 'Calling Dr.Love', 'Sweet Pain', or 'Christine Sixteen' making an appearance.
Buy it for 'She', Ace Frehley's guitar solos, and the songs mentioned in this review. And the sheer recording excellence of this album, which I dare say might be their best sounding album.
Description of Dressed to Kill
2006 Japanese limited edition issue of the album classic in a deluxe, miniaturized LP sleeve replica of the original vinyl album artwork.After the misstep of Hotter Than Hell, Kiss recaptures the energy of their first album and go one better with Dressed to Kill. Obviously the most well-known song off this album is "Rock and Roll All Nite," but there's a lot of other good material here as well, including the upbeat "Room Service," the groove-heavy "C'mon and Love Me," and the sensual "She." Though Kiss would not become superstars until their next album (that would be Destroyer), Dressed to Kill shows them headed in the right direction, having hit on the elusive formula of heavy chords, strong rhythms, and a determination not to take themselves too seriously. --Genevieve Williams
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