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List Price: $38.99 | | Label: 101 DISTRIBUTION
Salesrank: 14251
Released: October 6, 2009 |
| Our Price: $17.12 |
| Used Price: $30.80 |
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| Media: Audio CD |
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Sonic Boom-Limited Track Listing:
Disc 1:
1. Modern day Delilah
2. Russian Roulette
3. Never Enough
4. Yes I Know (Nobody's Perfect)
5. Stand
6. Hot And Cold
7. All For The Glory
8. Danger US
9. I'm An Animal
10. When Lightning Strikes
11. Say Yeah
Disc 2:
1. Deuce
2. Detroit Rock City
3. Shout It Out Loud
4. Hotter Than Hell
5. Calling Dr. Love
6. Love Gun
7. I Was Made For Lovin' You
8. Heaven's On Fire
9. Lick It Up
10. I Love It Loud
11. Forever
12. Christine Sixteen
13. Do You Love Me?
14. Black Diamond
15. Rock And Roll All Nite
Editorial Review:
Limited UK three disc (two CD + PAL/Region 0 DVD) edition of the Rock legends' 2009 album includes a bonus CD containing 15 Kiss klassics plus the Live in Buenos Aires DVD. After a nine year wait, Rock superstars Kiss release the studio album Sonic Boom. Featuring 11 brand new Kiss anthems, Sonic Boom is an emphatic statement from one of Rock's most iconic bands. Says guitarist/vocalist Paul Stanley: "The purpose of this album isn't to let people know that we're still around - it's to let people know we can still knock out anybody who's out there!"
Sonic Boom-Limited Reviews:
KISS and Make Up Already! 
2009-12-14 - The punters would have us believe this is the best KISS album in decades; unfortunately, "Sonic Boom" is harder to assess than one might expect. Songs such as "Yes I Know (Nobody's Perfect)" and "Hot and Cold" do have a 70's-era sheen to them, and yes, this album is big, dopey fun, but almost every track here steals an Ace Frehley solo from the band's most celebrated period, and drummer Eric Singer throws in plenty of cowbells in best Peter Criss-style. Everyone now knows that Peter and Ace played on only a couple of tracks on the "Psycho Circus" album, and Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley both contend this was necessary because Space Ace and The Catman can no longer play, but anyone who has heard Frehley's new "Anomaly" or watched Criss pound the kit for the "Kiss Symphony" concert knows otherwise. Which begs the question: why bring Singer and guitarist Tommy Thayer in to imitate Criss and Frehley? It's bad enough Simmons and Stanley disrespect their former bandmates by dressing up their replacements in full Frehley/Criss regalia, but must these stand-ins ape every lick and fill their predecessors ever played???
It's unfortunate that the Stanley-Simmons power-block insisted on so much mimicry, because the more contemporary-sounding tracks on "Sonic Boom," ("Never Enough," "Danger Us," "Say Yeah") have enough pop to stand on their own. Both "Stand" (which sounds like it may have been a "Psycho Circus" outtake) and lead-off single "Modern Day Delilah" have plenty of hooks but the guitar riffs are so familiar they stop just short of parody. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Criss and Frehley must be blushing...
Sonic pleasure
2009-12-08 - --The performances are great
--About 80% of this album is catchy, and this release is by far KISS's most "poppy" effort.
--This album does not remind me of "Love Gun", and I think it's leagues better than "Psycho Circus".
--My favorite KISS songs are the pop leanings hits they got hammered for in the past ("I was made for lovin you", "Beth", "Shout It Out Loud").
--"Sonic Boom is loaded with hooky pop-rock. The band has successfully recaptured their old sound which is a real treat for me. If you like KISS songs that are catchy and don't take themselves too seriously (and why should they?),then you will LOVE this album.
It's like the old days when people asked "do you like skinny Elvis or fat Elvis"...Elvis was great either way. Same for KISS...it's a matter of personal taste. "Sonic Boom" is a great KISS album!
Don't know, it's an xmas gift 
2009-11-24 - Don't know, it's a gift. It was shipped in a timely manner but haven't looked at it since it came.
Less Embarrassing Than "Crazy Nights", But... 
2009-11-23 - Update: I'm having trouble understanding why my honest, informed, well-written, and concise yet information-packed review has been deemed not helpful by three of four raters. Are people confounding "negative" and "informative" or "quality"?! Perhaps if, like some other reviewers, I had totally rambled, paragraph after paragraph, about how Eric and Tommy are nothing more than Peter and Ace impostors, or about Gene's reality TV show, I would have been better received. But I didn't go in that direction, because the point of a CD review is to discuss the quality of the songs that it contains, not the names and personal lives of the musicians who played on it.
There are few people on the planet who love KISS more, or know more about KISS, than I do, and I wanted to like this album as much as I liked the very solid "Revenge" and the brilliant "Carnival of Souls", but unfortunately I do not. Why not? Because by and large "Sonic Boom" is trite, forgettable, insincere, insulting (especially to us lifelong diehards) drivel that really does sound like throwaway tracks from their mid- to late-80s albums. All of you who gave "Sonic Boom" more than two stars: thank you for caring enough to buy, listen to, and review the album, but I'm sorry, you're just plain wrong, and I respectfully submit that this review is your wake-up call.
Back to my original review (edited slightly)...
1. A Diehard with 32 years of loyal fandom, I think the world is a better place when KISS is releasing studio albums, and I always want to like KISS' music.
2. I do not like "Sonic Boom". And it's not because I was expecting the second-coming of their brilliant 70s work, because I wasn't, and because that's not possible. It is because "Sonic Boom" is one of KISS' worst efforts, arguably surpassing only "Animalize", "Asylum", "Crazy Nights", "Hot in the Shade", and "Psycho Circus" (all hereafter abbreviated AACHP) in overall quality. Or maybe (quite probably, in fact) surpassing none of them.
3. Four of the AACHP albums---the exception being the embarrassing, outdated, and irrelevant "Crazy Nights"---each contain a minimum of three songs that are better than at least ten if not all eleven of the tracks on "Sonic Boom".
4. "Sonic Boom" gives us KISS ripping off KISS ("Burning Up With Fever", "Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell", "Silver Spoon", "God Gave Rock and Roll To You", "Love 'Em and Leave 'Em", the "Parasite" solo, and the "Rock and Roll All Nite" live solo...) and KISS ripping off others (Sammy Hagar's "Heavy Metal", Whitesnake's "Slide It In", W.A.S.P.'s "The Flame", Poison's "Nothing but a Good Time"...) while offering several downright silly, almost laughable moments and very few interesting or memorable ones, let alone any classics or "statements".
5. This album appears to be little more than a collection of AACHP throw-away tracks that are as cliched, generic, and bland as Bon Jovi became long ago. Some of the songs appear to have potential, only to quickly slip into ridiculousness and/or insult us with predictable, done-to-death lyrical bridges or lame choruses.
6. Those of you who are loving this album are either delusional or were so hard-up for new KISS material that you decided (consciously or not) to mentally green-light anything that Paul and Gene would cough up. They promised us a return to the band's 70s sound, and on this promise they delivered---sort of, at least on a few tracks. The glaring problem, though, is that they tricked us by combining the literal 70s "sound" with weak, insincere, mid- to late-80s songwriting. Very sneaky. Finally, the decision-making, i.e., Paul's questionable production work, is seriously misguided.
I leave you with these three words of profound wisdom that I hope Paul and Gene consider at great length and act on before they ever wander back into the recording studio, arrogantly and foolishly intent on overseeing such a daunting and important (to those of us who LOVE this band!) project themselves: Re-hire Bob Ezrin!
Grade: C-, maybe D+
After a few listens....
2009-11-20 - After a few listens, this is a good CD. I can here bits of Rock and Roll Over, Dressed to Kill, Love Gun and more in this record. Tommy Thayer does exactly what we want him to do...sound just like Ace - this is what the fans want. Ace and Peter can't be replaced, but the current KISS lineup is great - the KISS show must go on.
