Bruce Kulick-BK3

Twenty4
2010


These last few months have seen a lot of activity that will undoubtedly interest KISS fans. First Ace Frehley emerged with his first album in twenty yeas. Then of course KISS returned with Sonic Boom. Now former guitarist Bruce Kulick comes forward with his newest outing. Kulick recruited a number of guest stars for this album including Gene and Nick Simmons, Eric Singer, John Corabi and Steve Lukather. The album is actually more varied in style than I figured it would be. I expected much of the disc to sound like leftovers from Kulick's KISS days. There are a few songs that sound like they could have been on Revenge, but they are better than leftovers as they are actually quite catchy. I also don't blame Kulick too much for copying that sound as Revenge was far and away the best KISS that he played on. However there are a number of more mellow hard rock songs and even some just plain rock songs. The majority are handled well enough and sound like they could have come out around the early-mid 90's. The album reaches a bit of a low towards the middle with a few consecutively slow songs that had me starting to lost interest. There isn't one sound throughout and a large part of that is likely due to the number of guest stars. Overall it sounds like Bruce Kulick is playing music he likes and the majority or it is instantly likable although overwhelming or highly original. I always thought that Kulick was likely the best guitarist technically to play with KISS, but he was basically a journeyman filling in the slot. Here he gets to call the shots, but he opens up his playing sporadically as he holds back more than I was hoping. Still it's tight and KISS fans will probably find enough about it to enjoy.