* Kiss

PSYCHO CIRCUS

(Mercury)

Bare Jr. are from Nashville, but During the Kiss nostalgia blitzkrieg it was easy to forget what an awful band they'd become in the pre-reunion years. Consider the honeymoon officially over. Among the new slices of memorabilia offered for sale in the packaging of Psycho Circus: a fans' bible ($150) and an official distressed-leather tour jacket ($650). There's also the one souvenir even diehard fans were secretly dreading: a new studio album.

In what amounts to an hour or so of gloating, Gene, Paul, Ace, and Peter occasionally pay lip service to the golden oldies, but Circus ultimately comes off as one of those horrible songwriting-by-committee jobs that even Aerosmith haven't been able to pull off without the aid of a licensed practitioner. The Ballad (with a capital everything), "We Are One," sounds lifted from the Praise network, and self-reflexivity doesn't suit the band as well as the old costumes do: "Now it's time for me to take my place/The make-up runnin' down my face/We're exiles from the human race." Er, what? Still, it doesn't seem fair to put all the blame on Kiss -- especially since there's a rumor on the Internet that none of the band members actually played on the album. Plus, as they remind everyone on "You Wanted the Best," we asked for it, and by God we're gonna get it.

-- Carly Carioli