News

Only a few weeks after unveiling a deluxe box set of their third studio album Dressed to Kill – which featured, in part, overdub-free versions of shows utilized for their breakthrough concert album Alive! – KISS have revealed that they will, in fact, release a whole box set for Alive! as well, confirming previous rumors and reports.

Available on four CDs or eight LPs and a Blu-ray Audio disc, Alive! features the original double album (here for the first time pressed on one CD) along with two more complete shows (plus some relevant rehearsal audio and an excerpt of a third) that were, with a few post-production tweaks, used to create the landmark Alive! These overdub-free recordings have been newly mixed by the album’s original engineer, Eddie Kramer, who’s also done mixes of the original album in Dolby Atmos and 5.1 surround on the accompanying Blu-ray. As is customary for KISS’ box sets, the packaging includes a 100-page book offering new liner notes by Ken Sharp, drawn from interviews with band co-founders Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons plus relevant members of the band’s crew and team; it’s further augmented with a host of replica paper goods, including a press kit, tour program, glossy photos, lithographs, ticket stubs, backstage passes, bumper stickers, guitar picks, coasters and even more.

The timing of Alive! could not have been more fortuitous. KISS was desperate to break through, and their label Casablanca Records desperately needed a hit after sinking a major investment in an underselling record of clips from The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Knowing that KISS’ over-the-top live sets – featuring bold, brassy rock songs sung by a quartet of New York musicians in distinct black and white makeup, theatrical costumes and onstage special effects (including pyrotechnics, larger-than-life drum risers and stage blood shooting from bassist Simmons’ mouth) – had considerable potential, Casablanca had Kramer roll tape on several shows in the summer of ’75. The challenge was that the theatrics sometimes obscured the quality of the songs, whether the band missed a cue or was drowned out by an explosion. Though they’d deny it for decades, the group reconvened in Electric Lady Studios to tighten and sweeten the 16 tracks selected for the album.

Fans didn’t mind the illusion: Alive! became KISS’ first album to hit the Top 10 in America and their first album to be gold certified by the Recording Industry Association of America, and a version of Dressed to Kill standout “Rock and Roll All Nite” peaked at No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100. Now, nearly two years after the group took their final bow (and a month after the passing of founding lead guitarist Ace Frehley), the Dressed to Kill and Alive! box sets will offer Kramer’s new, overdub-free mixes of all the shows that made Alive!: one at Detroit’s Cobo Arena on May 21, 1975; a portion of a June 21 appearance at the Cleveland Music Hall; two from the RKO Orpheum Theatre in Davenport, Iowa on July 20, 1975; and a show at Wildwood Convention Center on the New Jersey shore from July 23 of that year. With any luck, it’ll keep your attention for at least part of every day.

Both versions of the box are currently only available through the band’s official webstore – and at that, limited only to members of the KISS Army fan club, along with a capsule collection of Alive!-themed merch and apparel. But the box will start shipping soon to those buyers in two weeks’ time, on November 21. Order links are below, and the full Alive! merch collection is here.

Alive! (50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition) (Mercury/UMe, 2025)

4CD/Blu-ray: Official Store
8LP/Blu-ray: Official Store

CD 1/LP 1-2: Remastered album (released as Casablanca NBLP 7020, 1975)

1. Deuce
2. Strutter
3. Got to Choose
4. Hotter Than Hell
5. Firehouse
6. Nothin’ to Lose
7. C’mon and Love Me
8. Parasite
9. She
10. Watchin’ You
11. 100,000 Years
12. Black Diamond
13. Rock Bottom
14. Cold Gin
15. Rock and Roll All Nite
16. Let Me Go, Rock ‘N Roll

CD 2/LP 3-4: Live at RKO Orpheum Theatre, Davenport, IA – 7/20/1975 (second show) (previously unreleased)

1. Deuce
2. Strutter
3. Got to Choose
4. Hotter Than Hell
5. Firehouse
6. She
7. Ace Frehley Guitar Solo
8. Nothin’ to Lose
9. C’mon and Love Me
10. 100,000 Years
11. Peter Criss Drum Solo/100,000 Years
12. Black Diamond
13. Cold Gin
14. Let Me Go, Rock ‘N Roll

CD 3/LP 5-6: Live at Wildwood Convention Hall, Wildwood, NJ – 7/23/1975 (previously unreleased)

1. Deuce
2. Strutter
3. Got to Choose
4. Hotter Than Hell
5. Firehouse
6. She
7. Ace Frehley Guitar Solo
8. Nothin’ to Lose
9. C’mon and Love Me
10. 100,000 Years
11. Peter Criss Drum Solo/100,000 Years
12. Parasite
13. Black Diamond
14. Cold Gin
15. Let Me Go, Rock ‘N Roll

CD 4/LP 7-8: Bonus Live (previously unreleased)

1. KISS Jam (Live Rehearsal at RKO Orpheum Theatre, Davenport, IA – 7/20/1975)
2. Room Service (Live Rehearsal at RKO Orpheum Theatre, Davenport, IA – 7/20/1975)
3. Strange Ways (Live Rehearsal at RKO Orpheum Theatre, Davenport, IA – 7/20/1975)
4. Rock Bottom (Live Rehearsal at RKO Orpheum Theatre, Davenport, IA – 7/20/1975)
5. Watchin’ You (Live Rehearsal at RKO Orpheum Theatre, Davenport, IA – 7/20/1975)
6. She (Live at Cleveland Music Hall, Cleveland, OH – 6/21/1975
7. Ace Frehley Guitar Solo (Live at Cleveland Music Hall, Cleveland, OH – 6/21/1975
8. Nothin’ to Lose (Live at Cleveland Music Hall, Cleveland, OH – 6/21/1975
9. C’mon and Love Me (Live at Cleveland Music Hall, Cleveland, OH – 6/21/1975
10. 100,000 Years (Live at Cleveland Music Hall, Cleveland, OH – 6/21/1975
11. Peter Criss Drum Solo/100,000 Years (Live at Cleveland Music Hall, Cleveland, OH – 6/21/1975

Blu-ray Audio

• Original album (Dolby Atmos Remix)
• Original album (Dolby TrueHD 5.1 surround)
• Original album (24-bit/192 kHz hi-res stereo)
• Original album (24-bit 96 kHz PCM stereo)