Glasgow Kiss wrote: Sat May 03, 2025 1:18 am
Kojin77 wrote: Sat May 03, 2025 12:04 am
HOFCity wrote: Fri May 02, 2025 2:19 pmYes , no doubt about it.
Even if just Ace was on it. TT gave that album it's bad name not the material on it.
Disagree - if you didn't change a single thing on Sonic Boom and had Thayer and Singers performances still on the album, it would have been hailed as a return to form musically if it was dressed up as an OG album. People would have been remarking on how well Peter and Ace were playing.
The original question which people seem to have deviated from though is whether if SB had come out at the time of PC would have been received better than PC was. On the surface it probably would have as it's an enjoyable enough listen, although there probably would have been a gradual realisation that it wasn't much more than what you get when you put RARO and LG through a blender.
Despite the assumption that the originals were on PC - more than they turned out to be anyway - it wasn't particularly well received at the time it came out despite the climate of anticipation beforehand. In the aftermath of the reunion from memory people wanted to like it, but conceded fairly quickly the record was a lacklustre duffer full of toe curling self-reference.
The main trouble SB encountered when it came out was that Kiss had existed for a long time by then as a travelling nostalgia show and merch tent - they provided a safe, predictable escape back to childhood for middle-aged rock fans who didn't enjoy change. That being the case, there was far less appetite for anything new from them in 2008 than there had been more than a decade previously when PC came out.
I feel it's far less of a line-up v line-up thing than you do - you've also got to take the contemporary contexts into account.
Totally get where you're coming from, your breakdown of the historical context and the reception of Psycho Circus vs Sonic Boom is solid. You're absolutely right: by 2009, KISS was essentially a heritage act wrapped in a merchandise tent, and the appetite for anything new was practically nonexistent. But in 1998, the emotional high from the reunion tour was still strong. The fans wanted to believe - badly, too. That context matters.
But here’s where I’m drawing the line in the greasepaint:
If Sonic Boom, exactly as it is -Thayer and Singer’s performances intact -had been released in 1998, dressed up as an “original four” record, it absolutely would’ve been hailed as a return to form.
Here’s why:
Psycho Circus failed because it tried to be something KISS has never done particularly well - grandiose, theatrical narrative rock. The title track teased an epic, but the rest of the album was caught in tonal whiplash - Paul doing his Broadway preacher thing, Gene sleepwalking through clichés, and a fractured band dynamic visible from orbit. The "we're all back!" lie was transparent the second you heard Kevin Valentine’s surgical drumming or Ace's alleged guitar parts played with suspicious accuracy. Even people who wanted to love it - after listening to the full album - came away thinking, “That isn't them.”
Sonic Boom, on the other hand, is at least sonically coherent and stylistically focused. It’s lean, riff-driven, and grounded in exactly the kind of no-frills rock the reunion-era crowd would’ve devoured, even if some of the tracks have no legs. But tracks like Modern Day Delilah, Never Enough, and Yes I Know (Nobody’s Perfect) sound like they came off a cassette demo from ’77 that someone just cleaned up. If you slapped Peter and Ace’s names on the sleeve, fans would’ve gone mad over how “tight and disciplined” Ace sounded or how “Peter finally brought back that swing.” Hell, some even did EXACTLY that over Psycho Circus (the track, not the album!)
Would it have aged perfectly? No. But it would’ve had a massive honeymoon period. It would’ve been seen as proof that the reunion wasn’t just a victory lap, but a genuine creative rebirth. That’s the kind of narrative fans in '98 were craving. They didn’t want complexity. They didn’t want innovation. They wanted the original four in the same room, spitting fire and slinging riffs. Sonic Boom gave them exactly that - just 10 years too late, and with the "wrong" faces behind the paint.
So yeah, Psycho Circus failed because it over-promised and under-delivered - a bloated, confused “statement” record without a statement. IMHO Sonic Boom would’ve succeeded in ’98 because it did the opposite: simple songs, big hooks, tight execution. It’s not groundbreaking, but it didn’t need to be. It just needed to feel like KISS again - and in 1998, perception was nine-tenths of reality.
