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RELEASED: July 23 2007
PRODUCER:Peter Criss
LABEL: Silvercat Records
BAND: Peter Criss
Mike McLaughlin
Paul Shaffer
Will Lee
Mark Montague
Clifford Carter |
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Music, Production
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Vocals, No rock |
TRACKS:
1.One For All 2.Doesn’t Get Better Than This 3.Last Night 4.What A Difference A Day Makes 5.Hope
6.Faces In The Crowd 7.Send In The Clowns 8.Falling All Over Again 9.Whisper 10.Heart Behind These Hands 11.Memories 12.Space Ace
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OVERVIEW
I’ve always been more of an Eric Carr man; hands down. I never cared for Criss’ boring drumming or his personality. However, when the time was right, I thought his voice outweighed all others in KISS. Black Diamond was always especially belted out with great attitude; Hard Luck Woman was solid as a rock, and of coarse the Criss-fan favourite Beth. His past album have been hit-and-miss, but what about his latest effort?
SONGS
The instrumental prowess and production is actually really great, the organ is especially good in this old-style gospel like number. Peter however, is a different story. I’ve heard Gene Simmons say Criss is tone deaf, but this is ridiculous. Doesn’t Get Better Than This is another well written soul song, with some nice guitar leads that is embarrassingly soiled by Criss’s non-soulful pipes. Although painfully slow at times, Last Night isn’t too bad, and his vocals on the cool lounge number What A Difference Makes almost sound in tune. A few smokin’ guitar licks don’t help salvage the Beatlesque Hope. Faces In The Crowd is made worse from some shocking overdubbed crowd cheers?? At least Bring In The Clowns suits his voice and he does it justice. Falling All Over isn’t so lucky. Criss puts enough heart into Whisper to make it worthwhile, as he does on Behind These Hands. Memories sounds like a lame 70’s disco ballad and the terrible tribute to Ace isn’t saved by a short jam at album close.
CONCLUSION
Ugh. It’s a shame for all the other musicians that played so well on these tracks, because Criss slaughtered every one of them. There’s little to no rock n roll to be seen, but that was somewhat expected and forgivable. But what is here, is an old, white, Italian, trying to be a black soul singer; embarrassing. He did a decent job at producing, but should have lent his voice to some auto-tune. Everything on this album is great; par the vocals, which are some of the worst I’ve ever heard. And that’s the name on the cover. Do yourself a favour; buy the new Paul Stanley album instead.
