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By DOUG ELFMAN
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Don't mistake Kittie for a novelty act. Here are the facts. The band consists of four heavy-metal players, all teen-agers. They outfit themselves in severe dye jobs, collars and tight skirts. And they perform angry declarations against inner demons, social conformity and unfriendly betrayal.
But the young band is talented and maturing musically. The band members wrote their first songs in their early teens, green songs that were mildly interesting and, maybe, purposely out of tune. Their newer material has more intricate musicianship, better singing, catchy melodies and hard-core screams. Their new single, "Paperdoll," is as engaging as a Tool tirade, and as lively as early No Doubt.
Kittie's ripening started as soon as the foursome formed in 1996. Singer Morgan Lander learned how to play her $50 guitar by plugging it into a karaoke machine speaker, in the rec room in her house in London, Ontario. She used a broomstick to hold her microphone.
"It started innocently enough," Lander says, "playing covers and learning musical structure."
A few years after that, an independent record label signed the group. Lander was 17. Now 19, she and the other Kitties are rising stars on modern-rock radio stations. They show up in all the right music magazines. Their music videos are slick. Right now, for a few weeks, they're touring with Fear Factory and other heavy bands on the Artistdirect.com SnoCore Rock tour.
Lander says her band is lucky and blessed with success, but the musicians deserve credit for writing interesting songs...