Kiss releases their tenth studio album “Creatures of the Night”

On 22. October, 1982, Kiss released its tenth studio album, “Creatures of the Night”, according to Larry Alan Harris’s book “And Party Every Day: The Inside Story of Casablanca Records”. Although other sources give 13., 25. (copyright) or 28. October as the release date, Harris’s book lists 22. October.

“Creatures of the Night” was the band’s last for Casablanca Records, the only label for which Kiss had recorded up to that point. The album was dedicated to the memory of Casablanca founder and early Kiss supporter Neil Bogart, who had died of cancer during the recording sessions. It is also the band’s last album recorded with Ace Frehley credited as an official member and their first album with Vinnie Vincent, as the initially uncredited lead guitarist. Vincent would later be credited but not featured on the cover of the 1985 reissue of the album. It was also Kiss’ last album to feature the band with their trademark makeup until their 1998 release “Psycho Circus”.

The album represented a conscious effort by Kiss to return to the hard rock style that had helped them achieve commercial success with “Destroyer” (1976) and “Love Gun” (1977). The first key ingredient was songwriter/guitarist Vinnie Vincent, who was soon to replace Frehley as the band’s new lead guitarist after being introduced to the band by album co-writer Adam Mitchell.

Musically, the progressive rock of “Music from “The Elder” and the pop of “Dynasty” and “Unmasked” were completely absent from “Creatures of the Night”, making it the heaviest album the group had made at that point. Paul Stanley called Kiss “a heavy metal band” in 1982. “I Still Love You”, the only ballad on “Creatures of the Night”, was still heavier and darker than any ballad Kiss had released in earlier years. Also contributing to the heavy sound was Carr’s drumming style, which was more similar to John Bonham’s drumming than to Criss’ jazz-influenced style. “Creatures of the Night” is the first Kiss album to have all lead vocal duties handled by either Gene Simmons or Stanley exclusively. All previous studio releases by the group contained at least one song with lead vocals by another band member.

Kiss “Creatures Of The Night” 1st rough draft artwork mockup by art director Dennis Woloch.

For the cover of “Creatures of the Night,” Kiss art director Dennis Woloch initially explored scenes showing the band in dark forests and swamps, surrounded by snakes, bats and other nocturnal creatures. When these proposals were rejected, he turned to a simpler concept: four large faces, coloured blue to suggest nighttime, with glowing eyes.

To create the mockup, Woloch enlarged existing photographs of the band members into negative Photostats, cut out their faces and arranged them on black cardboard. Once satisfied with the composition, he had the assembled image reproduced as a single positive Photostat. He then applied blue Spray Mark, a marker-like colour spray that tinted the white areas while leaving the blacks intact. Using masking material and an airbrush, he added white paint around the eyes, allowing it to bleed beneath the masks to produce soft, glowing edges.

Both the band and producer Michael James Jackson loved the result. Jackson suggested retaining its rough appearance, but Woloch intended the collage as a guide for a polished photograph. Bernard Vidal subsequently photographed the band under blue-gelled lights, with the glowing eyes added afterward.

Paul Stanley:
“Creatures of the Night was very much a recapturing of our desire and our focus as a band and a reclaiming of was important to us. We had become rich, fat and lazy and became enamored with the idea of having our peers think we were smart and musical and really all the things that are poison to us. When we did Creatures it was that step of us declaring we were back. There’s a great sixteen track demo of Creatures that is virtually identical to the master. As soon as we wrote it, we knew it would start the album. To me, the first song sets the identity and tone for the album.”
– “Kiss Behind The Mask: The Official Authorized Biography” by Ken Sharp & David Leaf

Vinnie Vincent:
“I Love It Loud was the first song Gene and I wrote together. When we recorded the album I was still new to the band. The record was recorded at a studio in L.A. called Record One and it was a tiled room. The drums had an incredible echo in this room, the best drum sound I have ever heard. That was my favorite recording experience because of the studio and the experimentation that went into that record. I was very new to the band at that time. It was a real thrill. For ‘I Love It Loud’, Gene had a chant, which was used at the beginning of the song, and I wrote the lyrics. We had good interplay. We spoke the same language, we spoke the same attitude.”
– “Kiss Behind The Mask: The Official Authorized Biography” by Ken Sharp & David Leaf