KISS

In this installment of the masked rock marauders' live franchise, they have merged low culture with high art, performing on 10 tracks with the Melbourne Symphony, all of whom performed in Kiss makeup. Like those who have gone before them -- from Deep Purple's 1970 coupling with the London Philharmonic to Metallica's 1999 pairing with the San Francisco Symphony -- Kiss's symphonic partners add a dimension and complexity hitherto absent from their hard-rock ethos, best appreciated on a lumbering beast of a song like "God of Thunder." Also included are six never-released live acoustic versions of classic hits.