“Parasite” is one of the rare early KISS riffs that qualify as traditionally metallic; rarer still, it’s also inventive and influential (you’ll recognize its chord progression on Gang of Four’s “What We All Want” and “Ghetto Life” by Rick James). Of course, the main artifact people tend to recall about this album is “Goin’ Blind,” a dirgelike Gene Simmons power ballad about a ninety-three-year-old man having an affair with a sixteen-year-old girl. (The detail about the age difference was actually concocted by Paul.)
