Hello Kittie

Four metal-mad Canadian girls rock Worcester

By Phil McNamara

This Friday, a city known for its youthful metal bands gets a visit from some Canadian kids who play like they could be from around the block. They can throw down heavy head-

banging riffs with the best of them, and oh yeah -- they're girls. Since Kittie's new video for "Brackish" cracked the MTV rotation, the question I've been hearing the past few weeks is, "So are they any good?"

Well, Kittie isn't working out any four part harmonies, but they are working up some foot-stomping, mosher-friendly metal riffs that will rock you to your entrails. If these kids were local, they'd probably be sharing the stage with Controlled Aggression, Dr. Bewkenheimer, or Shadows Fall. As it is, they've been touring with Biohazard, Morbid Angel, Pantera, and now co-headlining The Sno-Core tour with Fear Factory and Slaves on Dope.

It's a good time to be a kid in a band. All around the world, teenagers are forming new bands by the dozens every day; but did you ever notice that the only teen bands that make it to mainstream radio or MTV are the likes of Silverchair, Hanson, or N Sync? If anything, Kittie is closer to those 80s preteen punkers Old Skull, who came up with songs like "Don't Go to School" and punk rants about how Reagan sucked.

Since forming three short years ago in London, Ontario, these four young ladies have been defying expectations in their homeland and across North America. True, one of the first songs Kittie learned in practice was a Silverchair song, but within a half dozen practices they had found their own voice and a sheer passion for the debauchery and bluntness that is heavy metal.

In songs like "Spit" from their debut EP of the same name, the band leads off with low-toned, crunchy, speedy guitar riffs ala Bad Brains or their recent tour mates Pantera. Lead singer Morgan Lander growls out her best Lemmy Caution imitation, in between the sung vocals. the hit "Brackish" begins with a speedy guitar workout before descending into a moshfest, while guitarist Fallon Bowman shouts over Lander's singing.

At the end of 2000, the band released the EP Paper Doll. Although it doesn't have any new material on it, it's a lot of fun to listen to, capturing the ecstatic energy of their live show. These particular cuts from the Hultsfred Festival in Sweden last summer show a band who love their jobs, but who can't help shooting off their potty mouths (maybe they've been spending to much time hanging out with those Pantera guys). Morgan starts "Spit" with a growled "What the fuck is up?" and ends "Brackish" with a "Thank you very fucking much." The record has more than enough F words to get a Parental Advisory warning sticker slapped on it, but between the curses, the band is putting out a tight sonic assault that will satisfy the most hardcore of metal-heads. The title cut is probably the most accessible song on the record, with its building, bass-heavy beginning and Morgan showing off the full range of her vocals. The rest of the record is pure fun. The live version of "Spit" is mosh pit ecstasy : a crushing guitar assault, stomping slow parts, and old school breakdowns. The rest of the disc churns along with a passion that makes it easy to envision the thousands of kids back there in Sweden moshing it up, which is pretty much how it's going to look at the Palladium Friday night.

Being an all girl band and writing songs with titles like "Do You Think I'm a Whore?" beg the question of how much sex is involved in Kittie's music. Guitarist Bowman laments, "People try to look at our songs and try to pick them apart and say that they're about sex, but none of them are. They were written at a pretty young age. It would be really cheap to make songs about sex and be a girl band. I mean that is what everyone would expect us to do, isn't it?"

"Do You Think..." is a song about small-mindedness and misperceptions -- a very, very angry song about small-mindedness and misperceptions. Kittie's road to rock stardom has not been as easy and painless as it sounds. They spent over a year jamming at their house before getting a shot at playing out at a high school Battle of the Bands (see, they really are just like local bands). Kittie's music is harsh enough to rattle most teachers (and even some students); but it was their relentless use of the F-word that got them kicked off the school's stage and relegated to the local bars.

In 1999, the studio owner that produced the bands first demo tape passed it on to GG Garth (Rage Against the Machine's first producer). That quickly got them signed to Ng Records, now part of Artemis Records. As Artemis was preparing for Kittie's debut, Spit, to hit the stores, crisis struck the band when original bassist Tanya Candler announced that she was leaving the group. Candler's departure also signaled an end to Kittie's stage antics (including biting the crotches out of male blow up dolls) which threatened to overshadow their live music. From this point on, Kittie were on stage to rock out. Since replacing Candler with Talena Atlefield, it's been a whirlwind of big tours, magazine articles, television and radio shows.

While bands like Papa Roach and Korn made a killing peddling family dysfunction, Kittie were getting their parents' full support. On tour, their tour managers are Dave and Dee Lander, a/k/a Morgan's and Mercede's parents. So how scary does having Phil Anselmo from Pantera or the Morbid Angel guys hanging out with your parents sound?

Sno-Core Rock, featuring Fear Factory, Kittie, Slaves on Dope, Union Underground, and Boy Hits Car, rolls into the Palladium, (508) 767-9696, this Friday, February 9, at 6 p.m.

Phil McNamara can be reached at pmcnam777@earthlink.net.