Kiss Of The Gypsy - Kiss Of The Gypsy (1992)

Kiss of the Gypsy were an English hard rock quintet comprised of vocalist Tony Mitchell, guitarist Darren Rice, keyboardist George Williams, bassist Martin Talbot, and drummer Scott Elliott, which narrowly missed out on the hair metal gold rush. The group was formed at the tail end of the 1980s, but only released its eponymous debut album in 1992 -- barely a year after Cobain and company brought the entire glam rock generation to its spandex-clad knees. Ironically, that album's quality brand of melodic hard rock, spiked with bluesy undertones and topped with a polished post-AOR sheen, showed a lot more substance than most of the trite junk coming out of L.A. at the time, and one has to wonder if producer Barriemore Barlow -- of Jethro Tull fame -- had something to do with it. Probably not, but although their career fizzled out before it even truly started, Kiss of the Gypsy are generally remembered more fondly than most guitar-wielding poodle-haired hard rockers of the era.