Psycho Circus

Japanese-only release limited to one pressing only. Featuresan animated 3-D 'Psycho Circus' NTSC videotape with 3-D glasses for viewing, a one dimensional version of the 'Psycho Circus' video and a picture CD with 'We Are One', 'Psycho Circus' and 'In Your Face'. All of this comes packaged in a beautiful, full color die-cut 1.5" x 6" x 7.5" display box. 1999 release.

Talk about the roar of the greasepaint: On this first studio effort together since Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley welcomed back once-exiled mates Peter Criss and Ace Frehley with open talons (was it really almost 20 years? How the pterodactyl flies), the unkillable beast called Kiss reels off a few potent additions to its undeniably, er, prodigious body of work. Still stubbornly plodding through the musical tar pits of their classic-rock youth--a little Beatles harmony here, a little Alice Cooper guitar noise there--the dressed-to-ill foursome makes the clock roll back (if not completely unwind) with the fist-waving "I Pledge Allegiance to the State of Rock & Roll" and the if-Green-Day-can-do-it-why-not-us acoustic surprise, "We Are One." Better even than the album is the in-booklet merchandise ad, which hawks Kisstory II in all its "440-page, 9-pound" glory, for a mere $158.95. Like they say: size does matter. --Billy Altman