The Kiss is the 5th album from Bikeride. Recorded inside lead singer Tony Carbone's home on a recording machine from the 1970's, The Kiss is Bikeride's very best album.For starters Bikeride needs to be praised for their use of bizarre instruments and interesting song construction that isn't used nearly as much as it should. On the song Your Lips and You has Didgeridoo, Davul and everything they can to make it sound as Arabian as possible. Also, the song A Dancer's Feet Are Not So Neat has some of the very best pedal steel playing in a pop song ever, and it should, seeing as how Sheryl Crow's former pedal steel guitarist is who they chose to play on it.
Of course the album is filled with more pop hooks than you could imagine. Worth mentioning is the great vocal reprise and pedal steel riff at the end of the previously mentioned A Dancer's Feet Are Not So Neat. The bonus track Siamese Twins is also unbelievably catchy.
Also worth mentioning is the exceptional mixing. As I read on their blog "It was mastered in the same room and on the same equipment as Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, biggest seller of all time. Maybe some of it will rub off on The Kiss." It most definitely did. Every song just sounds really great. Good job to Kevin Bartley at Capitol Records.
The album has a few trouble spots in the middle where the songs just aren't as original or moving. I also never liked Bikeride's habit of putting several silent tracks of varying length to eventually reveal a secret track or two. Just don't do the silent tracks; no one listens to them or cares about them.
Sadly, Tony Carbone died last March and left behind a really gorgeous daughter and wife. The band hasn't updated their myspace or anything yet, but I think its safe to say the band won't be them same without Tony. Who knows what the future is for Bikeride, but as for The Kiss, it is one of the best pop albums of the new millennium, but slightly haunting how it echoes his absence.
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