Kittie
In The Black
E1 Records
9/10
Last time I heard from these scary Canadian chicks was either the ’99 or ’00 OzzFest. Attractive, roughly my age and playing OzzFest!? Yes, I was sold. Now I’m older, wiser and only slightly less guided by my hormones, so when I got Kittie’s new album, In The Black, I was interested, but skeptical. I was also blown away.
Having skipped their last three studio albums, I didn’t know what to expect, which was probably the best way to approach this. Starting off with the obligatory pseudo-classical guitar noodling intro, Kittie soon blasts into harsh riffs and vocals that made my throat cringe. Apparently Kittie’s had some time to get good and pissed.
“My Plague” makes me terrified of vocalist Morgan Lander, which sucks, because she is effing hot. Whereas “My Plague” has Lander sounding similar to Dani Filth, “Now or Never” has her highlighting a skill a lot of metal singers do not possess: the ability to actually sing.
My favorite track on the album has got to be “Whiskey Love Song,” and not only for the title, but for the fact that I think it has a great balance of Lander’s sister Mercedes’ machine-gun kick drums, new addition Tara McLeod’s meedly-meedly guitar solos, Ivy Vujic’s deep-as-Barry-White’s-Voice bass and Lander showing off both sides of her voice. Ladies, if you promise not to sacrifice me to Malebolgia, you should give me a call.
–Jonathan Yost