Band:	Kitties Of Death
Album:	Valley Of The Dead
Style:	Avantgarde black metal
Release date:	January 01, 2016
A review by:	ScreamingSteelUS

01. Snuff Princess
02. 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

Somewhere along the line, Kitties Of Death made some creative decisions that doomed this album to an untimely death. We'll gloss over the name "Kitties Of Death" for now and just take the issues with that as read. For today, the primary stumbling block with which we must contend is the interesting fact that Kitties Of Death was simply the wrong band to record this album.

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.