#10 - Kittie - Funeral for Yesterday

Kittie- Funeral for Yesterday (X of Infamy Records)
After exploring a darker edge with 2001's Oracle and 2004's Until the End, both featuring lead singer Morgan Lander doing her best Cookie Monster impersonation, Kittie has come to the realization that kids are actually digging female-fronted hard rock bands like Evanescence and Flyleaf that incorporate melody. After dealing with label nightmares, Kittie chose to release Funeral for Yesterday on their own imprint, X of Infamy Records, and pack the first half of the record with some pretty standard metal numbers that feature chunky guitar riffs and Lander singing in a clean voice.

There are a few tracks, "Sweet Destruction Interlude" and "Everything That Could Have Been" among them, that are worthy of spins on hard rock radio stations but just around the halfway point, Lander flips the switch and falls back into integrating Cookie Monster barking into the songs (the old school Metallica sounding "Never Again", "Flowers of Flesh and Blood"). It makes for a confusing listen. What audience does Kittie really want to appeal to? They'll have to answer that question and deliver an album full of that style of music before they have a chance to get the same kind of attention that they garnered with their 2000 debut, Spit, when they were considered a novelty act because they were Canadian teenage girls playing thrash metal. Not bad, but just not consistent enough.