review by: Matt Smith

I don't have much to say about this album. This is mainly because the album doesn't say much for itself.

Oracle plods along at essentially the same medium-slow tempo (andante, maybe?), laying down some 4/4 crunchy (and overly simple) guitar riffs and uncomplicated drum lines with some growling mixed with singing. Every song uses essentially the same formula, making Oracle that much more boring. Each song may contain one or two changes within it, but the frequent repetition just makes me want to stab my ears out with a sharpened pencil. They could be over before they start for all I care. Solos consist mainly of feedback and other guitar noise.

The lyrics are similarly boring and useless; they're basically spouting cliché "tormented soul" bullshit. It's cryptic enough to possibly be considered "deep" by those who don't think about them. This is an excerpt from "Pain:"

Just stop it..
Just stop it...
Red dress serpent and you'll stay here!
You deserve nothing at all...
You knew that life was a game...
You deserve nothing at all...
YOU MUST ENDURE YOUR OWN PAIN!

Ugh. The whole album is full of this banal, melancholy crap.

Kittie initially became popular a few years ago when they caught some airplay on "hard rock" radio stations with the likes of Slipknot and Korn. They've toured with Ozzfest, Pantera, Skinlab to further their "underground" metal careers when all they're really doing is watering down death metal to make it more palatable to the mass audience with their melodic (though uninteresting) vocals, rock tempo, and streamlined, nu-metal image. All they're missing is a rap vocalist - then they could sweep MTV, too. And don't even get me started about their butchery of Pink Floyd's "Run Like Hell." Why do musicians feel it necessary to ruin classic songs these days? If you remake a song, shouldn't it improve in some way? Sigh...

A female metal band may be novel, but Kittie has a long way to go before they're any good. If they weren't already well known they'd probably work a little harder, though. We'll see how long they stick around, though hopefully it won't be long enough for another album.

review by: Roberto Martinelli

Ouch. That was a harsh review, Matt. Well, I can't say I disagree with you.

What the sound of hard and heavy music played by a band whose members all have breasts is certainly a major factor in the listener's curiosity. And indeed, Kittie is very heavy. In that respect, the band delivers. And so it seems for the first minute or so that the album might be pretty interesting, too. Oracle benefits from a nice, full and hard-hitting production. However, by the time the second song ends Kittie's formula has become stale.

The songs on Oracle are very formulaic. Either they are straight growled, or introduced by some clean singing and then growled. You can predict what's going to happen ages before it does. In their own respects, the vocal styles themselves are pretty good, but when applied to banal drumming and riffs making up simplistic songs that were generated from a cookie-cutter, you get tedium in the extreme.