use an asbestos diaphragm?

Simmons subtly leaves these questions unanswered on Love Gun, no doubt to preserve his mystique. He does, however, drop us several tantalizing hints. He describes his Vesuvius of the lower regions as "perfection" on "Plaster Caster" and offers, "If you want to see my love, just ask her." This line represents the record's only serious artistic failure: inside the jacket is an order form for Kiss T-shirts, Kiss posters and Kiss belt buckles—so why do we have to go to the Plaster Casters for a glimpse of perfection? Why not have a $6.95 check-off for a plastic replica of the Gene Simmons Memorial Seed Silo? Paul Stanley, who also uses "love" as a euphemism for "my dick," could have a model that dances in eight-inch platforms. Peter Criss could have one with a hydraulic system that raises it 30 feet in the air. And Ace Frehley's could shoot rockets over the audience.

Love Gun's less serious failures include losing much of the energy in the overdubs (a chronic problem with Kiss) and not taking enough advantage of Peter Criss' excellent voice. Still, they come up with some nice riffs, and "Then She Kissed Me," a cover of the Phil Spector tune, is genuinely funny for the right reasons. I'm told their next album will be a double live set. If history repeats itself, that album will contain the definitive versions of everything potentially worth hearing on Love Gun.

Rainbow's On Stage is hotter rock & roll, but it will not pull heavy metal out of the doldrums, as Miles Davis periodically does with jazz. Once the angriest and most aggressive genre of music, heavy metal no longer has anything to sing about. Where Kiss tramples on sexual taboos that were ground to dust in the last decade, Rainbow resorts to personal mythology that won't do much for you unless you think Robert Plant-style mysticism is poetry on the level of Lord Byron. Ritchie Blackmore remains a master of playing boring slow stuff and then plunging into your brain with a murderous riff that can be removed only through surgery. But I just can't care when Ronnie Dio screams about being the Man on the Silver Mountain and becoming "holy" again.

Hope for high-energy rock, however, arrives from two different fronts—Texas and Britain. Roky Ericson, singer for the late and much-lamented Thirteenth Floor Elevators, the best psychedelic band to emerge from the Southw