KISS - A Special KISS Tour Album [Black & White Splatter]

Once a promo-only rarity, KISS's A Special KISS Tour Album gets a proper release as a 45 RPM EP on black and white splatter vinyl.

Casablanca put the original together in 1976 to promote the band's summer tour in the wake of Destroyer, gathering four songs from that album for radio and industry ears rather than the record racks. Destroyer, produced by Bob Ezrin, had pushed KISS toward bigger arrangements and sharper songwriting, and this short selection shows just how far the band had stretched in a very short time.

Detroit Rock City is pure velocity, a story-song with harmonised guitars and a revving, pedal-down feel that still makes it a set opener for the ages. Beth, sung by drummer Peter Criss over strings and piano, became one of the band's biggest hits and remains its most unexpected moment.

Flaming Youth adds a strutting, almost carnival bounce, with a fairground organ line weaving through the riffs, and the EP's four-song shape makes it a quick, punchy listen that rewards flipping over again and again.

It's a compact slice of the band's mid-70s peak, presented much the way insiders first heard it, and the splatter pressing gives a once-hidden piece of KISS history the bold look it always deserved.