Kiss: Destroyer [MERCURY]

Why you'll love it

This 180g Back to Black pressing was made in the EU and comes with a printed inner sleeve and an MP3 download voucher. Destroyer was the first Kiss album to go platinum, certified gold and platinum within its first year.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Printed inner sleeve
• Download card included
• Pressed in the EU
• Lyrics included
• Stereo mix

About the album

After the live album Alive! finally broke Kiss, they needed a studio record that sounded as big as the show, and they found it with a Toronto producer. Bob Ezrin, fresh from his work with Alice Cooper, took the band in hand in 1975 and ran the sessions like a summer camp, whistle round his neck and all, stopping at one point to give them lessons in basic music theory. Casablanca had signed Kiss to a new deal for two albums, and the label was counting on this one.

Ezrin threw out most of their demos, keeping reworked versions of "God of Thunder" and "Detroit Rock City," and brought in outside help: members of the New York Philharmonic, songwriting input from Kim Fowley, and Alice Cooper guitarist Dick Wagner, who played acoustic on Peter Criss's ballad "Beth." "Shout It Out Loud" and "King of the Night Time World" round out a record far more polished than anything Kiss had made before. Ken Kelly painted the apocalyptic cover.

Paul Stanley later called the experience musical boot camp and said the band came out a lot smarter. Nobody has ever recorded whether they got a badge.

Also at Kops: more Kiss on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Casablanca / Mercury, a reissue of the 1976 album.