Kitties Of Death - Valley Of The Dead - review
Kitties Of Death - Valley Of The Dead - review
Band
Kitties Of Death Album
Valley Of The Dead Style
Avantgarde black metal Release date
January 01, 2016 Tracklist
01. Snuff Princess02. Cold Eyes
03. Faerie Wings
04. I Am Hate
05. Black Flame
06. Springtime
07. Desecrated Tomb
08. Your Doom
09. Coward
10. Bag Of Bones
11. Valley Of The Dead
12. Summer
13. Suicidal Art
A review by
ScreamingSteelUS May 15, 2016
I don't doubt for a second that "Cold Eyes" could be an amazing song if it were performed by Saille, and if "Faerie Wings" went home to Sigh where it belongs, it could be salvaged. Nearly every song on Valley Of The Dead calls to mind some other band - Forefather, Ensiferum, Дрыгва - and underscores how much potential dies in this album. I don't get the impression that Kitties Of Death ripped off any other artists, rather that this band was able to draw on a variety of sounds and influences and work them into an interesting piece of music. The problem lies in the performance; Valley Of The Dead is written like a moderately impressive symphonic or avant-garde black metal album, but is performed like a raw basement-black-metal album.
For starters, the horrendous keyboards render so many of these songs unlistenable. Only on a few occasions do the keys suggest that they have something meaningful to add to a song. Most of the time, whether noodling nonsensically in the background, slathering themselves in utterly inappropriate and mood-breaking effects, or simply disregarding entirely the key of the song and the concept of staying in tune, the keyboards contribute nothing other than hints at where real keyboards might be cool to use in a real version of the album. The guitars often suffer the same fate, though they usually have the decency to sit on the sidelines and add nothing. The lead vocals are monotonous at best and distractingly lackluster at worst, and the female vocalist who overlays occasional cleans sounds more like the ghost of Picnic Of Love-era Seth Putnam than an enchanting symphonic-type frontwoman.
Only the drummer seems to have some real level of consistent competence, and he outpaces the other members to such a great extent that I can't blame him for sounding bored with the entire project. If the party responsible turns out to be a drum machine, and I'm actually not sure that it isn't, I'll feel slightly dumb for a moment, but that reality would only drive home my point that Kitties Of Death aims far beyond what it can genuinely accomplish. The inconsistent audio levels make this album feel like a demo; sometimes the drums dominate the songs, other times the keyboards get in the way, and from time to time everything suddenly gets quiet before kicking back up again in a way that doesn't feel intentional or helpful to the song.
Valley Of The Dead contains what I would call a vast supply of attempts to be interesting. The musicianship doesn't hold up to the level of ambition, and that simple misfortune actually makes me pretty sympathetic towards Kitties Of Death. From the name, I expected either a lame joke or some grotesque, offensive noise, but Kitties Of Death instead presents a collection of well-constructed symphonic black metal songs that, though occasionally derivative, could definitely stand out against most of the black metal releases of the year if given a proper chance at life. Valley Of The Dead hordes so many potentially great ideas that I really want to love, but none of them pans out. If an entirely different band came along to re-record this album, I'd consider it a humanitarian act, and I truly hope that Kitties Of Death can get its act together and perform this material like a professional band some day.
Rating breakdown
| Performance: | 3 |
| Songwriting: | 8 |
| Originality: | 6 |
| Production: | 4 |
Written on 15.05.2016 by
Written on 15.05.2016 by
Dull Music for Dull People Comments
Comments:
8
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Posts: 5826
Funny thing is that their other album Blue Flame was by far more consistent. Even though the production was not quite different from this, it was centered on some kind of blend of tongue-in-cheeky post punk and black metal, and the tongue-in-cheek aspect of the songs made the band name justice. This album seems a lot more of, and to be honest it doesn't sound like the same band at all. All you wrote about the production and that they were the wrong band doing the songwriting is what I feel as well. I wouldn't give it a 4 (I think I rated 5 or 6 don't remember) but still way behind the other albums, yep.
---- "Aah! The cat turned into a cat!" - Reimu Hakurei
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Posts: 4326
Didn't think I'd end up seeing this on here 
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Posts: 6702 Written by Karlabos on 16.05.2016 at 00:22 I listened to a bit of Blood Ocean and had more-or-less the same reaction as I did to Valley Of The Dead, but I honestly like the songwriting enough that I'd be willing to give their other albums a try to see if I could stomach any of them better. From the name I was expecting something a lot more tongue-in-cheek, and if the album had actually been that way, I doubt I would have liked it anyway, but I'd at least have comfortably written it off and not bothered to review it. Coming as close as it did to being good made it pretty disappointing to me, but at the same time I want to like the band more.
---- "Earth is small and I hate it" - Lum Invader I'm the Agent of Steel.
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Posts: 1089 Written by Karlabos on 16.05.2016 at 00:22 It took me a second to realize I recognized this band, and I so happened to have Blue Flame in my wish list on bandcamp. It took me quite awhile to decide if I liked that band enough to put it in my wish list or not. I agree on the points their musicianship doesn't quite meet their songwriting ability.
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Posts: 6702 Written by PocketMetal on 16.05.2016 at 08:04 Basically.
---- "Earth is small and I hate it" - Lum Invader I'm the Agent of Steel.
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Posts: 64489
I like ratings this band belongs to parody genre not metal, something visually is wrong whit it, music is not good either
---- I stand whit Ukraine and Israel. They have right to defend own citizens. Stormtroopers of Death - "Speak English or Die"  I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
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