SHOUT IT OUT

LOUD It took four albums for Kiss to rise from Rust Belt cult act to national rock stars. Now the pressure was on for a follow-up. They responded with Destroyer, the 1976 album that turned the New York City glam-rockers into Gods of Thunder.

- DANTE BONUTTO

EVERY LONG-RUNNING BAND has its defining album, a creation that emerges from a seemingly perfect convergence of creative forces. For the Beatles it was Sgt. Peppers’ Lonely Hearts Club Band. For the Rolling Stones it was Exile on Main Street. Numerous other examples abound, from the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds to Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon.

For Kiss, the magic arrived on Destroyer, an album on which the forces didn’t combine as much as they cascaded forth like a fountain of stage blood. Coming after the clunky opening trio of Kiss, Hotter Than Hell and Dressed to Kill, 1976’s Destroyer was the studio follow-up on which the New York City glam rockers fine-tuned their mix of brawny rock and roll and theatricality into a musical vision that was both sonic and cinematic in its scope. Yes, it has the hits, including “Detroit Rock City,” “Shout It Out Loud,” “Gods of Thunder,” “Flaming Youth” and “Beth,” but Destroyer has something more: a cohesiveness of sound and vision — amid a sonic collage that includes choir, orchestra and keyboards — that in 1976 elevated Kiss to the ranks of rock and roll gods. To many fans, it was and remains their greatest achievement.