Kittie

Oracle (Artemis)
by Scott Hefflon

One part The Gathering, nine parts bad death metal/boring hardcore, Kittie, as usual, have moments of gleaming beauty amidst the predictable, useless, aren’t-they-going-anywhere-with-this? trudge metal. Fashionable, yes, talented, no. Even the guitarist of The Donnas finally learned how to play. These gals whip out some generic, repetitive riff, “groove” it into the ground, and never get anything going. Each song is like 10 seconds of a good Pantera song milked for four minutes or more. People write songs for Britney and various boy bands to perform, so someone oughtta write for Kittie. Hell, I’ve got an hour to kill, how many songs ya want?

The Gathering-esque track is the powerfully-sung “In Winter,” pretty much the only song that doesn’t sound like ten rewrites of a decent Slipknot tune, and while it sure ain’t no Drain STH (damn, I miss them), I’ll take what I can get. And their cover of Pink Floyd’s “Run Like Hell” is so absolutely goddamn awful that I simply can’t listen to it long enough to rip it apart. And the closer, “Pink Lemonade” is an odd mix of Eyehategod New Orleans sludge, some kinda nice feedback noise, and sparse, delicate singing. This is what journalists politely call “ambitious.” It’s good that Kittie are trying to not suck all the time, and while I’m glad they’ve listened to a bit of other music than the swill they churn out (and the hundreds of other interchangeable bands who prioritize production over songwriting), this is, again, a first-draft go-nowhere effort. Hell, get Dax (formerly of Agents of Oblivion and Acid Bath) to pen you a tune and some lyrics cuz you need the guidance and he needs the work!
(www.kittie.net)