Review by Rick Eaglestone for MPM
Some bands go back to their old records because they have run out of ideas. Kittie are going back because, for the first time, they have the room to do it properly. A year on from Spit XXV, which took four songs from their gold-selling 1999 debut and gave them a modern overhaul, the London, Ontario outfit now turn to the record that first proved they were far more than a novelty headline. Oracle XXV lands, twenty-five years after the original, and a Friday the 13th release is a nice piece of mischief from a band whose second album dragged them so firmly into the dark.
Oracle was born in turbulent circumstances. Co-founding guitarist and vocalist Fallon Bowman quit with the studio already booked, so Morgan Lander ended up laying down every guitar part on her own, while sister Mercedes held down the drums and Talena Atfield played bass on what would be her only Kittie album. Cut at EMAC Studios in London, Ontario, during the summer of 2001 with Garth Richardson producing, it traded much of the alt-rock and nu metal bounce of Spit for something far nastier, with streaks of thrash and death metal running right through it. It debuted at number 57 on the Billboard 200, and although reviews were mixed back then, its standing has grown steadily since, and it now sounds like the point where Kittie stopped being judged on novelty and started being judged on riffs.
The timing of this second trip back could hardly be better. 2024’s Fire, their first new material in thirteen years, put them firmly back on the map, earning a Juno nomination and while We Are Shadows gave them their best showing yet on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart. Spit XXV then showed that revisiting the past could sit happily alongside that return rather than distract from it, and the recent Legacy Of Fire tour marked three decades since the band first formed.
Richardson is once again the man behind the desk, and that is exactly the right call. He has known these songs since their first breath, and on Spit XXV he proved he could bring old material into the present without polishing the snarl off it. The line-up is the one that made Fire, with Morgan and Mercedes joined by guitarist Tara McLeod and bassist Ivy Vujic and having a second guitar back in the fold makes a real difference to songs originally recorded by a band suddenly one member down.
