Kittie: Spit

Kittie: Spit
Label: Artemis
Release Date: 2000
Review Date: 2001

When are we going to get over our fascination with girls in hard rock bands? With all of the press about Kittie, “Spit” has a lot to live up to. They’re a group of young, empowered girls who rock hard in a male dominated industry. Song titles like “Suck” “Spit”,and “Whore” are suggestive, and merit a deeper listen than your initial impression tells you. What the press and most reviews don’t tell you is that they suck. Musically, there is nothing original. You’ve heard the same combinations of effects pedals on guitars and vocals before in a million jock-rock metal rap acts. News flash: B-movie horror show vocals sound just as stupid from tough young girls as they do from frat rockers with goatees. When the girls actually do sing instead of yell, it approaches being listenable. They do have a message, even if it is diluted through the cartoon approach of their musical styling. The song “Suck” is the standout on the album. It starts out very strong, but it’s soon ruined by the ridiculous female version of the Rob Zombie style vocals. At least Rob does his own thing.

As an added bonus(?), Spit includes a multimedia enhanced partition on the disc that fails as miserably as the audio part of the CD. First off, the label has been sold on some proprietary format that insists on installing crap on your computer instead of industry standards that cut down on this kind of unnecessary and invasive bullshit. So the results are worth it, right? Nope. What you get is a web-based interface that is sloppy and annoying. It doesn’t fit in a 600 by 800 screen without scrolling. The photographs are bad scans of prints that highly visible scratches. They are obviously from the same session as the cover art and video shoot. There aren’t very many, so it’s vexing that some of them are the exact same photos. Way to make good use of the available space. The video for the track “Brackish” is of the generic fake-live performance genre. It’s presented in another proprietary format that I imagine was sold to the label under the guise of preventing the act of copying. What’s the point? What are the labels afraid of √ê that someone might copy the video and distribute it to other kids and accidentally GENERATE INTEREST in the band? If for some unknown reason you want to watch the video more than once, or on a different computer, you’ll have to launch the same sluggish application or go through the install process again. Ever hear of Quicktime? You know, the free, cross-platform content delivery system that pretty much everyone already has? Also, the multimedia piece doesn’t seem to want to let go of my computer after I’m done watching it.

The rest of the interactive part of the CD is just as lackluster. The band’s trys too hard to balance a hard-core image and commercial appeal. They make a big point about not being store-bought Britney Spears clones but then cop out at the end and say that they aren’t dissing her and they actually respect her. Whatever. The lyrics section is just a hand scanned note of the lyrics to “Brackish”. I guess they didn’t have time for the rest of them. The link to the band’s website (www.kittie.net) is equally underdeveloped. The interface for the video clip has holes for missing clips, and the whole thing stinks of a hurried execution.

The album “Spit” and the Kittie marketing juggernaut is all about this group of young, attractive female alterna-rockers who aren’t afraid to stand up to anyone. Ironically, they all look like they bought their clothes at the same punk rock store in the mall. It’s the kinder-whore meets Alice Cooper fashion show. These young women have the right to dress however they want and say whatever they want. I hope they’re making a lot of money though, because it sure seems like they’re being taken advantage of by their label. These not ready for prime time girls are competent musicians that probably should have spent a bit more time in the trenches developing an original style before they got shoved into the forefront of the musical press. Keep your ears open though. I’d expect to hear something worthwhile from some combination of these girls in the future.

Spit: Sucks. Don’t Swallow it.

Online Waste of Time: kittie.net
Online Action: artemisrecords.com