“It’s time for a revival,” is a common sentiment in modern music, but Kiss Kiss’ Josh Benash, doesn’t say it, he embodies it. With their explosive debut album, “Reality Vs. The Optimist,” Kiss Kiss don’t just revive music, they build a cathedral to it out of a gypsy circus tent. In the space of twelve tracks, the caberet catches fire, the orchestra aches and Josh Benash’s voice breaks it’s way through a truly groundbreaking masterpiece.

The word is getting out. Death and Taxes write, “In an eastern-European-flavored whirlwind of circus music gone rock, Kiss Kiss have dished out a very creative album that somehow manages to mold infectious pop out of avant-garde insanity. Go see them live and you’ll understand.” Through the ferocious dissonance of “Machines” the band channelsNirvana for sheer power and originality while “Satellite,” with it’s sweeping chorus and Beach Boys verses, proves that Kiss Kiss aren’t just obscure fair for the art school crowd.

“I got a job at the Knitting Factory as an intern, and it was there I Discovered musicians like John Zorn, Glen Branca, Mike Patton, Sun Ra,” explains Benash, “But I think that initial love of a good pop song never left me, and I began to try and incorporate the strangeness I loved in Avant Garde, with the great melodies I love in Pop.” Alternative Press concludes that the band make “Epic and experimental pop… you’ll wonder how you ever lived without them.”

The band have been touring the country tirelessly in support of bands like Mono, Black Dice, Ramona Cordova and the Ataris and have built a dizzying reputation as a live band. They will be continuing to support the full-length through 2008, bringing their unique mix of gypsy melodies akin to Beirut, Gogol Bordello and DeVotcha to every city in the country.

Reality Vs. The Optimist is in stores now through Eyeball Records, the Independent NJ label responsible for the similarly genre-breaking bands, Murder By Death and The Number Twelve Looks Like You as well as giants Thursday and My Chemical Romance.

“The mainstream has a knack for sucking the Honesty out of a genre, and it takes a new leaf to bring that back.“ Josh Benash, Kiss Kiss

Press

"Kiss Kiss do the Eastern European-flavored thing right (especially when they crash into Oingo Boingo). With morose lyrics that seem ripped out of a Tim Burton poem (if he wrote poetry), the dual pounding keyboards, psycho-circus-inspired melodies, a fleeting chainsaw and a frantic violinist, Kiss Kiss are the Geppettos to the Living Dead dolls." - Alternative Press

"In an eastern-European-flavored whirlwind of circus music gone rock, Kiss Kiss have dished out a very creative album that somehow manages to mold infectious pop out of avant-garde insanity. Go see them live and you'll understand - you won't know whether to laugh, cry, or poop yourself. Trust me, it's a good thing." - Death & Taxes

"SDFJSDFHSLDF!!!! Sorry, I had to type something that had as much furious energy as this album does... Kiss Kiss...are unique in the fact that they have an electric violin player, and a live show that's second to few. Their debut full length, 'Reality Vs. The Optimist,' ... should be a release people remember this year, and for years to come...probably the most versatile and rabid CD you will hear all year... It tells a story that sounds like it could be composed by Dr. Frankenstein himself. Whatever angle you take this record from, it'll catch you off guard. It will end up being something you weren't expecting, and not in a bad way. What they do, they do well, they play well, they write well, they sing and shout well ... and this is only the beginning." - Absolutepunk.net

"Kiss Kiss is part of that strange sect of bands who are subverting emo’s core absurdity via gleeful theatrical bombast. We’d recommend the band’s Reality vs. the Optimist to anyone who relishes the surreal zaniness currently being practiced by groups ranging from My Chemical Romance to the Paper Chase—there’s even a bit of System of a Down–style circus punk in the mix." - Time Out New York