Riff Police! Pull Over! #62: Kittie Vs Coal Chamber!

Rewinding the tape back to 1997 and Roadrunner Records Monte Conner taking a chance on a Nu-Metal quartet from Los Angeles California by the name of Coal Chamber. The band had been around 5 years at the point where their self-titled debut was ready and were something of a known entity having performed on the first outing of Ozzfest in 1996 and it was connections with Fear Factory guitarist Dino Cazares and the Producer of the day Ross Robinson that lead to the band landing that all important deal. When… you know, getting a deal was the be all and end all, unlike now. The album itself dropped 500,000 copies in a time where you could sell serious volumes of albums and features probably the bands biggest single success in opening track “Loco”. It’s instantly recognisable groove and schizophrenic video directed by Nathan “Karma” Cox is without a solid combination, even if it did have KoRn fans pointing the copycat finger.

Fast forward 3 years to the year 2000 and an album that critics claimed “proof that KoRn fans aren’t sexist”. The debut full length album from the much loved Canadian Heavy Metallers Kittie was recorded in the summer of 1999 before appearing in January 2000 to similar sales figures to Coal Chamber’s Self-Titled album. The then all female lineup also took on Ozzfest in 2001, as Coal Chamber had done previously. But it’s mid-album single “Brackish” featuring loops and beats from one DJ Dave (?) that bares more than a little of the same hallmark as “Loco”. Influenced? It’s hard not to be when MTV is pushing a track like “Loco” while your band is starting up….