Whether or not you consider Kiss to be a metal band, I don’t believe that anyone could argue that their 1982 album Creatures of the Night is a heavy metal record. And a damn fine one at that!

Here with the epic anthem “War Machine” from the Creatures of the Night record is the mighty Kiss.

As part of Amazon’s monthly $5 MP3 album deals, the KISS compilation album The Very Best Of KISS is on sale in MP3 format for only $5. (The CD is currently $8.49 and is an AutoRip, which means with the CD purchase you’ll also get a FREE MP3 download of the entire album.)

This is 21 of the best KISS songs for only $5 (that’s less than a quarter each), so this is a steal! And and yes, they are great tunes – this isn’t one of those best-of compilations where you’re never heard of the songs. There’s “Detroit Rock City,” “Shout It Out Loud,” “Strutter,” “Deuce” (I could end up naming all 21 at this rate), and the Alive! version of “Rock and Roll All Nite,” which of course is the best rendition of this mega-hit. There’s even “New York Groove,” the hit off of the Ace Frehley KISS solo album (the best, of course, of the four 1978 solo albums). Most of the tracks on The Very Best Of KISS are from the band’s makeup era in the 1970s, but there’s a handful of the post-makeup selections, too. KISS is one of my favorite bands in the world, so I can go on and on and on about how if you don’t already own most of their music catalog, you should grab this best-of collection, especially at this low price.

Browse all 100 albums on sale this month for only $5 each.

Original KISS members Ace Frehley* and Peter Criss performed together this week for the first time in 13 years at the 30th anniversary celebration for radio host and TV’s That Metal Host star Eddie Trunk.

The Spaceman and The Catman, both of whom originally left KISS in the early 80s, but returned to the group for the 1996 reunion tour and subsequent album Psycho Circus, jammed together at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York City on Wednesday, October 23, 2013, along with Anthrax members, bassist Frank Bello and guitarist Scott Ian; former Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy, and Guns N’ Roses guitarist Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal.

With Frehley on lead guitar and Criss on drums, along with a combination of the aforementioned musicians, the former bandmates rocked out on KISS tunes “Parasite,” “Got To Choose,” “Hooligan,” “Love Her All I Can,” and “Rock And Roll All Night” — the latter three performances can be seen here below in a fan video that was taken.

KISS Kids #1
Written by Chris Ryall and Tom Waltz
Art by Jeremy Colwell and Jose Holder
Covers by Jeremy Colwell, Luis Antonio Delgado, Rom Fajardo, Jose Holder, Dan Schoening, Bruce Timm
IDW Publishing
Release Date: August 21, 2013
Cover Price: $3.99

You wanted the best, and you got the best”¦
“¦but this ain’t it.

If you’re an adult, KISS Kids is terrible. If you’re under the age of 7, KISS Kids is ok. The End.

If I could leave the review at just that, I would. But I won’t. Being a KISS fan, upon hearing that KISS Kids was going to be a comic book series – an announcement made on April Fool’s Day – I honestly thought it was just a gag, a joke, a laugh. I played along with the joke, and we even posted another KISS-related April Fool’s post that day, too.

But then I found out IDW and Gene Simmons were sincere about it. I couldn’t believe it. This is perhaps the worst KISS idea since those coffins, I thought. And I was right.

Young children will probably dig it, especially kids of fans who have been bitten by the KISS bug… but older readers will find this experience tedious. While the art is fun to look at, KISS Kids, as a concept, would work much better as a television cartoon series than a comic book.

Happy Birthday today to The Spaceman, the irrepressible Ace Frehley, whose lead guitar work in the original version of the rock and roll quartet KISS elevated that band to one of the all-time great groups of that genre.

While the co-frontmen — Gene Simmons, with his blood-spurting, bass-playing rock shock antics, and Paul Stanley, all-around good guy with the sly wink — were pretty much always (and continuing to this day) at the forefront, it was the guitar sounds of the Space Ace and his attitude as well, which seemed to come from the Johnny Thunders/Ron Asheton/Wayne Kramer down and dirty rock variety that gave KISS arguably its musical cock walk strut on record, on stage, and in print. Frehley was the dark horse of the group who usually had musical photo finishes; he was the iron glue and in a lot of ways the one who experienced the most identity crisis, almost like the George Harrison in the theatrical greasepaint, the makeup which concealed the band’s identity during their heyday in the 1970s, but never concealed the band’s workman-like musical ethic.