Kittie – In The Black (2009)

Several years have passed since Kittie reached their highest point around 1999-2001, two albums later and plenty of lineup changes they are back with “In The Black”, released on their own vocalists label, and distributed in Europe by Massacre Records.

I have to agree that “In The Black” is the band’s most mature record to date, since the music is better defined that before, and the album is very cohesive. But the whole gimmick of the female growling and the all-female band has gotten old. The band’s 5th release is just another decent Metal album, but nothing to write home about.

The 12 tracks featured in this album are pretty ok in general, but none of them really standout for us. Musically is a far superior album than any of their previous ones and I find my self liking some of the songs like “Sorrow I Know”, but the album starts dragging after the 7th track. While I like the use of clean and harsh vocals, the clean vocals are very linear and seem very monotonic after a few tracks, a problem that I’ve always had with Kittie.

The riffing is pretty solid, but it gets very repetitive through the album. There are some pretty decent solos, and good riffs, but they are not diverse enough to make the songs notable. Some songs have a little of a Southern/Sludge Metal feeling to them, but this gets a bit dull and I think that if the band would have exploited this a bit more (and correctly) the album would be considerable better.

The drumming is pretty solid and tight and it fills the songs very well, but again it becomes dull with the repetitive nature of the band’s music. The bass guitar sometimes gets drowned in the mix, but is still persistent enough to shape some songs (“Falling Down”), but it’s never a factor in this album.

Overall, the band has found their own sound and it’s a pretty dull one to my opinion. They should shake things up a bit more and move away from this formulaic songwriting scheme, they had better ideas in their earlier albums. If you are a fan of the band, you will gladly welcome this album into your collection since it’s a natural progression from their 2007 release, but don’t expect anything ground breaking of too exciting.

Release: October 23rd, 2009

Country: Canada