Prato in 2013, Richie Wise shouldered the blame for the album's sub-par sonics. "For whatever reason, moving to California, my head wasn't in the right place. It was more of a chore than it was out of love, that album. And my heart and soul didn't get there. I don't remember having any breathing time. It was just too much exhale. It wasn't enough [to] inhale/exhale. Not enough give and take. I was going through a bunch of changes at that time. I moved from New York to California. I'd never moved like that in my life, made a big move. It was just a big time for me, and Hotter than Hell took a back seat. And I apologize for that." Cover art The album is well known for its striking cover designed by John Van Hamersveld. The front featured Japanese manga-influenced artwork, and the back cover showed individual band shots taken by Norman Seeff at a wild party and a composite of all four band members' makeup designs. The Japanese character on the bottom of the album cover (力) is chikara, which means "power". It would later be used on various forms of Kiss material during the 1970s and 1980s, most prominently on Eric Carr's drum kit. The Japanese characters on the top-right corner of the album cover (地獄 の さけび) are Jigoku no Sakebi, which means "shout/scream of hell" or "hell's shout/scream". The Japanese katakana characters used for each member had transliteration errors. The characters for Peter Criss are ピータ・クリース ("pita kurīsu" or Pita Creese or Crease) when it should have been ピーター・クリス pītā kurisu. Paul Stanley's last name was incorrectly transliterated as スタンリィ ("sutanryi" or stanlii) when it should have been スタンレー sutanrē. Gene Simmons' first name is incorrectly spelled ジイン ("jiin" or jeen or jean) when it should have been ジーン jīn, and finally Ace Frehley's first and last name were spelled エイス フューリ (eisu fyūri or roughly Aace Fury or Fuely) when the characters should have been エース・フレーリー (ēsu furērī). Release and reception Despite the intense touring schedule Kiss maintained in 1974, Hotter than Hell failed to outperform the band's first album and fared considerably worse. This was due partly to the fact that Casablanca's distribution deal with Warner Bros. Records had ended. The publicity push behind the album was not nearly as strong as it had been for the debut album. One notable