Alive is a tough act to follow, and just sticking a "II" at the end of the same title doesn't insure a perfect successor to the throne. Alas, when you put out a concert album that features your biggest hit ("Beth") being mangled by a laryngitical cokehead, it's tough to grab the brass ring. No, not that everything on here is weak -- far from it. The first few songs ("Detroit Rock City" and "Ladies Room", to name a couple) capture Kiss at their best, and "Shout It Out Loud" is a perfect singalong finale. And the studio tracks tacked on the end? Well, a lot of people consider "Rocket Ride" one of the best Kiss songs. (I'm not one of those.) But the straight- faced, blatent Led Zeppelin ripoff "Larger Than Life" is pretty cool.

This just didn't grab me as hard as Alive did. Not a bad album, but definitely not essential.

-Jason Josephes