• AllMyVinyl #6
• Band: Ace Frehley
• Album Title: 10,000 Volts
• Release Date: 23 Feb 2024
• Date purchased: 4 Dec 2023
• Location purchased: Direct from label
• Color of vinyl: clear splatter vinyl
• Number of discs: 1
• Links: [ Wikipedia | Discogs | Band Website | Full album on Youtube ]

Well, Kiss is over, and they haven’t put out an album since 2012 (Monster).  There’s not a ton of new studio work from Kiss World, but in early 2024, we got this present from the Spaceman.  It’s his first solo album in four years (six if you want to count original material).

I found out about this from an email from his label – so that kind of marketing definitely does work.  I jumped on it pretty quickly, and ordered the album direct from the label as they had an exclusive splatter vinyl version which isn’t available anywhere else.  It’s now sold out, but looks pretty darned good, IMO.  I have a picture of the splatter on my turntable below before I started playing it so you can see it properly.

Frehley’s solo material was the best of the Mk I Kiss lineup, so another one was something to look for.  10,000 volts delivers.  This is probably my favorite Frehley solo album since that Kiss album that is also a pseudo solo album back in 1978.  This is a great album.  However, I have to put forth a caveat.  We’re not talking Sgt Pepper’s here.  What I mean by that is if you’re a fan of Kiss and/or Ace Frehley, you’re going to love this.  If you’re not a Kiss fan, you’re not going to like it, I’d imagine.

Having said that, the title track is a straight up slice of in your face, good old American rock & Roll – it’s a classic track, IMO.  There’s many others that I find myself singing as I play this one…  Fightin’ For Life, Cherry Medicine, Walkin’ On the Moon, the title track…..  There’s a lot of good stuff here.  It’s hard to describe individual tracks – it kind of feels like an old school “rock album”, where you take it in all at once, not in little pieces/individual tracks.  It definitely sounds like Ace Frehley here, and if you liked him in Kiss, I think you should check this album out if you missed it.

One thing that’s cool about this album – if you use Apple Music on recent Apple devices, they will for some albums have animated artwork for the albums.  You can turn that off if you want, but for 10,000 Volts, I think it had one of the best animated cover arts.  I’ve included the video here for you to check out.

I never saw Kiss with Ace live, but I did see Ace live solo back in Dallas on 18 Aug 2016.  It was a great show – did a lot of his old shtick – really enjoyed the show.  I’ve included a video I shot from that below.

One final comment about this album.  It’s a rule of mine that I have to listen to the album in full before I post my thoughts – I don’t want to cheat and just post my old memories.  However, this time when the album was over, I flipped the vinyl back over and played it again.  Really enjoyed the listen today.