Kittie : "Fire"

 Kittie is back, which should be no surprise given how nu-metal is making a comeback. The album opens with less of the staccato grooves that lumped the band in with the likes of Coal Chamber back in the day and this is a more straight-up metal affair. The sweet and spicy dynamic of the harsher vocals being answered by the sung vocals is still intact.  Morgan's snarl is more venomous with age. "I Still Wear This Crown" finds them in more of a Slipknot-like mood. I think "Falter" is a more well-written song, with a groove that flows better to my ears. 

This album is really well produced, considering how long they have been around as a band, we should not expect less. They were after all one of the first female bands rocking out this hard which made them more of a novelty at the time., They have a formula in place on this album as four songs in there is a uniformity to the head banging, with a few variations of this in place. Most of the songs hang in the balance around where her vocal hooks will fall. There are other strong moments like the taunt syncopation of "We Are Shadows' though her sung vocal, pretty much sounds like every other female metal singer out doing this sort of thing, even if Morgan originally broke ground doing it first. 

This album is less nu-metal than you might expect, though what nu-metal turned into could be argued,as Disturbed often bordered classic metal and thrash, so when "Wound" reminds me of a Disturbed riff, then maybe this is just the next logical place for nu-metal to go. Some of it just sounds like generic mainstream metal. Judging from that sludge band Morgan was in a few years back she has better taste than this, but perhaps this is the expectation of what a Kittie album sounds like in 2024. "One Foot in the Grave' conforms to what all other female-fronted metal bands do today. 

Perhaps nu-metal is not such a bad thing, as it was typically dark and angsty, which can be said for "Are You Entertained, " one of the album's better songs. As one of the lead singles from this album I am surprised how heavily "Eyes Wide Open" leans into the screamed vocals, Lander has spoken about the influence Pantera has had on her and you can hear it on this song. I will give this album an 8.5, it has some strong moments but the more generic mainstream metal moments, might target their audience, but do not do anything for me, but the songs that hit it hard balance this out to some extent.This album drops June 21st on Sumerian Records.  

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