Kittie Oracle
When these female Canadian youngsters appeared on the then-burgeoning nu-metal scene a few years back with Spit, they were greeted with the kind of suspicion and disdain you’d expect from a genre dominated by lunkheaded penis-brandishers. They don’t play their own instruments. They don’t write their own songs. It’s a gimmick. Spit surfed a wave of incredulity plenty big enough to swamp the most buoyant boy band, racking up massive sales and drowning the one important question, the one about whether or not it was actually any good, in hype disguised as gender politics and a timely groovecore sound. It really wasn’t any good — though the performances are more than competent, barring exactly two passages of haunting, melodic respite, the material on Spit runs from the forgettable to the regrettable — but that didn’t matter much. The point, obviously, was this: Hey, look! Teenage girls doing really heavy music! You should make an appropriately big deal out of it!
Now, two years later, the quartet returns as a trio, with a sophomore disc that offers little more than a new cover and better guitar tones. Oracle is quite possibly a step down from Spit, if only because Kittie now lacks the excuse of being first-timers. The girls are obviously a tighter, more experienced and capable musical unit. The production value is higher, and the riffs pillage a bit more from death metal than they do sports-core. But having vocalist Megan Lander employ her impression of Obituary’s John Tardy a bit more regularly than she did before does not a new direction make; it does, however, elevate their tuneage from banal to actively irritating. Their playing may have improved; their songcraft has not. Nothing beyond a few intriguing rhythms sticks, and a cliched dynamic shift usually whisks those away before their time. The cover of Pink Floyd’s Run is laughable for its first minute and a half, after which it becomes simply depressing. Fans of Kittie’s previous work will, of course, love this record.
If, with Oracle, Kittie attempt to step confidently beyond the shadow of their more press-worthy elements and be judged solely on the quality of their music, then they might be in serious trouble. Maybe eventually, these young ladies could accrue enough jam-time to come up with something worthwhile. Oracle, however, isn’t. (Artemis Records)
—Scott Harrell
Buddy & Julie Miller Buddy & Julie Miller
Husband and wife Buddy and Julie Miller are unsung heroes of alt-country/roots-rock. This, their first full-fledged collaborative album, easily surpasses the work of much-hyped upstart Ryan Adams (although, admittedly, the young’un is talented and has good hair). Buddy’s barbed croon meshes perfectly with Julie’s voice, which ranges from a girlish coo to a heated wail. The songs, most written by Julie, run the gamut from the roustabout rock of You Make My Heart Beat Too Fast to the mountain folk of Forever Has Come to an End. Little Darlin’ fashionably evokes the hillbilly stomp of O Brother Where Art Thou. Buddy’s guitar work, on acoustic and electric, gives the music an extra percussive drive. Buddy & Julie Miller gets in and out quick: 11 songs, just a shade under 43 minutes, and not a wasted note. (Hightone, www.hightone.com)
—Eric Snider
Ida The Braille Night
Capitol Records signed the New York band Ida and paid for the recording of this and Ida’s previous CD, but the label dropped the group from its roster without ever releasing a single note. It’s Capitol’s loss, really. The Braille Night is as beautiful as a lover’s sigh with excellently crafted songs driven by chiming acoustic guitars, warm piano, sonorous strings and funky drums performed low key with brushes. The opener Let’s Go Walking pulses like a heavy heart and builds slowly with sensuous strings and vibrant, honey-drenched girl/boy vocal harmonies. The lyrics question what we think we know about relationships: Love is everything/there is no true autonomy that wouldn’t be shattered by the willingness to raise up your lips to someone with no reservations at all. Blizzard of ’78 rocks out with a majestic beat and gorgeous descending piano chords. The CD’s title is lifted from this song, which is about getting to know yourself through mistakes in life: It’s obvious that trust is the catch and the magnet that could pull you through this Braille night where nothing is free and you just can’t see how to sacrifice what you need to be. Much of The Braille Night is about seeing things in a different light and questioning what we see, as with Arrowheads, a stark number with only acoustic guitar, piano, and violin: Take a peek through my eyes/my eyes are yours.
Rejection never sounded so beautiful.
(Last Affair www.idamusic.com)
—Chris Lunceford
The Cure Greatest Hits
Here it is. The best from the sweetly demented band that folks my age shook our vintage-clad booties to in the ’80s. The CD spans the early punk- and Goth-inspired rock from The Cure circa 1980 (Boys Don’t Cry, A Forest) to more quirky upbeat pop tunes (Let’s Go to Bed, In Between Days and Friday, I’m in Love). Greatest Hits features a single-disc version, including a new single and a double-disc version with powerful acoustic versions of six of the songs on the first disc — a must hear for loyal Cure fans and newbies alike. The new tune “Cut Here,” an upbeat song with downcast vocal and synth flourishes, is a lovely throwback to a time when angry, aggro music wasn’t dominating the charts. This and the rest on the CD represent the more cheerful side of The Cure, offering up the quirky melodies, flamenco textures and infectious rhythms that immortalized the British boys with big hair, black eyeliner and oversize clothing. Painfully missing is the classic “Fascination Street,” which may appear on a future retrospective highlighting the darker half of the Cure’s dichotomy. (Elektra, www.elektra.com or www.curehitsus.com)
—Julie Garisto 
This article appears in Nov 29 – Dec 5, 2001.
