Artist: Ace Frehley
Title: “Anomaly” (Deluxe Edition)
Label: eOne Entertainment
Release Date: 10/6/2017
Genre: Hard Rock
Rating: 4.5/5

Back in 2009, the world was excited as all heck about the return to recording by the legendary Ace Frehley, the forever Space Man of the band KISS where he used to sonically shred us on the lead guitar. The album was called “Anomaly” and at the time came care of Rocket Science Records. I reviewed that release on the website and you can see that care of THIS LINK. However, now that the Space Ace has been signed to the fine folks at eOne Entertainment AND re-issued this album as a spiffy Deluxe Edition, I am rehashing my original thoughts about the album (since they are the same as they were back then) and then closing out with words on the newly added Bonus Tracks. Take a look.

“Has it really been 20 years since the last Ace Frehley solo record was released? Yes my friends it has because in 1989, The Space Ace would release his final album with Frehley’s Comet “Trouble Walkin’” and eventually find his way back to KISS for reunion shows in full makeup. From this he would return to his solo career and that brings us to the present and to his stellar new release – “Anomaly”. I know what you are saying and that is probably something like “Twenty years? This better be good” and you have a right to be concerned because Guns ‘N Roses took sixteen to put out “Chinese Democracy” and that album was uhm well, let’s move along shall we. The great thing is that the Ace record does live up to expectations and delivers on all counts that one could have hoped it would have. We have been finding ourselves in the year of the throwback release and this means that a legacy artist is returning to a form that made them so special to us in the first place and as far as “Anomaly” is concerned, I would have to say that this is the natural successor to the groundwork first delivered on his 1978 solo release and then on his debut with Frehley’s Comet for their self titled album with just a touch of “Second Sighting” tossed in for good measure. I realize that I appear to be putting it on thick but in truth this is no exaggeration which the listeners will quickly understand as opening track “Foxy & Free” opens up with its crunching riff and rock solid drums. The first single Ace put forth for the release comes up next with “Outer Space” which is a good tune but not one I would have opted to make my first listen. A slight sarcastic wit comes out during “Pain In The Neck” where Ace shows us how not all relationships are peaches and cream. We get a tasty rendition of The Sweet’s “Fox On The Run” that while bearing none of the familiar synthesizers or high pitched vocals is still a nice cover.”

“Frehley shows some maturity in the song structure with the very different offering of “Genghis Khan”. Primarily an instrumental track, the groove is wonderful and there is a light chorus that gets repeated a number of times as its only vocals. Skipping around we find the Space Ace offering up some personal introspection during “A Little Below The Angels”; this largely acoustic sounding track has some really powerful lyrics about the guitarist’s life. “Sister” might very well be the heaviest number on the album with a pounding double bass drive under the ripping guitar riffs. I’ll leave the rest to be a pleasant surprise for the listeners because they will probably enjoy making some of the discoveries themselves even after I have clued them in on this being the best guitar work that we have heard Frehley do in a long, long time. His song writing is sound from beginning to end and each track has a consistency that works with what we had hoped he would present to us after so long. Vocally Ace sounds pretty much the same as he always does on recording and that’s not bad since he is not trying to sing outside of his register and instead plays well within the boundaries that he can easily do. Nice work Space Man.”

“Now for the packaging and this was something interesting in its own right. From the outside it appeared to be a standard digipak release that was housed in a nice paper sleeve but the inside slid out neatly and opened up on multiple sides. Each of these sides featured album artwork and photos of Ace Frehley and their configuration allowed the CD’s owner to fashion a pyramid from the packaging. While I thought it was intrinsically cool to see the effort placed into such a thing, I am hardly of the age where I find myself wanting to make origami sculpture out of my CD packages and instead prefer them to fit neatly somewhere until needed once again. I am probably in the minority here but that’s what makes the stand I took interesting. There is a booklet enclosed as well, and while this does fold out to a small posted of Ace, I was disappointed to realize that no lyrics were in place to enjoy and that sucked since it would have been fun to sing along with the release every once in awhile.”

“Ace’s album preceded the new KISS release “Sonic Boom” by a couple of weeks and I am sure that the long standing fans of the group will be picking up each of these albums for their music library to be complete and now that I have compared the two, the question is which one did I think was the better of the pair. To be honest I enjoyed a lot of what the KISS album offered but when it comes down to it from beginning to end the clear winner is the Ace Frehley “Anomaly” release based on the overall depth of the song writing and the skillful delivery of the same. Ace reminds us why he influenced so many guitar players again and again and the recording has a rock solid production which was done by Frehley himself. It’s safe to say that Ace can do any number of these songs in concert and not bore the audience because they are that good. Ace is back and he told us so never rang more true in his career than it does now, so do the right thing and order a copy of this album as you will not be disappointed.”

So as you can see, I loved the album when it came out and figured that with this new narrative that I would only speak to the bonus tracks that were included and these begin with “Hard For Me” which was never a song on the original release (in this fashion). Turns out this one is the original demo for the album and would become “Foxy and Free” by the time it was released. The words are different but the groove is the same. I have to say that I think I like the original a little bit more than what it ended up being released as. Thanks Ace for sharing this look inside how the creative process changes sometimes. A slower version of “Pain In The Neck” is offered up and the temp shift makes it feel like a different tune altogether. This kind of thing doesn’t usually appeal to me, but here it somehow did. The “Return Of Space Bear” is just a little too difficult to explain but if you like Ace being his often comedic self, then you might like this one. It’s not for me, as I think I’d rather hear straight ahead songs from the Spaceman as opposed to back and forth joking around. Diehard KISS fans should seek out the Tom Snyder interview that most of this dialogue is being quoted from since it’s something else. Now in my original commentary about this release I cited how this was packaged in a very interesting origami sort of case. With my being serviced an advance digital stream I could only speak to the cover art. I don’t think that this will be coming out in the same configuration since that had to be pricey to do but who knows. Nowadays, the music purchasing public is buying digitally and has little concern for the packaging that a release comes in. I still like a quality insert and overall packaging but I am officially in the minority by the current standard.

This release is a worthy addition to your music library and makes me look forward to new original music from the Original Spaceman Ace Frehley……”To Jendell and Beyond!!!!”.

Track Listing:
1. Foxy & Free
2. Outer Space
3. Pain In The Neck
4. Fox On The Run
5. Genghis Khan
6. Too Many Faces
7. Change The World
8. Space Bear
9. A Little Below The Angels
10. Sister
11. It’s A Great Life
12. Fractured Quantum
13. Hard For Me (bonus)
14. Pain In The Neck – Slower Version (bonus)
15. Return Of The Space Bear (bonus)

Official Website: http://www.acefrehley.com