Kiss, 'Hotter Than Hell': Retro Album Review

The first three Kiss albums weren't recorded particularly well, but Hotter Than Hell somehow manages to turn that weakness into a strength better than the other two.

Unlike their self-titled debut, which featured songs the band had been working on together or separately for years, October 1974's Hotter Than Hell largely found Kiss forced to write new material in the midst of a busy tour schedule.

The resulting material may not be quite as great as all-time Kiss classics such as "Deuce," "Black Diamond" and "Cold Gin," but it's a very close call. "Hotter Than Hell," "Got to Choose" and "Watchin' You" became equally important staples of the band's early set lists.

More importantly, while you wouldn't call Hotter Than Hell's production good, the performances sound more energetic and lively than they do on the somewhat stilted Kiss. It still sounds like they recorded both albums in a truck stop restroom, but this time they got better takes and used the sonic primitiveness to their advantage.

Hotter Than Hell also features more ambitious and diverse songwriting than its predecessor. "Parasite" flirts with thrash while Gene Simmons' sinister "Goin' Blind" predicts grunge's arrival 30 years early. "Comin' Home" reveals Paul Stanley's Beatles love while Ace Frehley gets heavy and impressively psychedelic on the album-closing highlight "Strange Ways."

Less than a year after the release of Hotter Than Hell, the breakthrough success of Alive! escorted Kiss into the world of bigger recording budgets and top-flight producers such as Eddie Kramer and Bob Ezrin.

The growth shown on later albums such as Destroyer and Love Gun is undeniable, but something unique about early Kiss was also lost under all that professionalism.

The group would never again sound as gloriously primal, dark and weird throughout an entire album as they did here. Over 50 years later, Hotter Than Hell stands as the high mark of Kiss' first phase.