The hell raising begins on the second track when “My Plague” kicks down the door with vintage Kirk Hammett-styled guitar riffs, a fierce rhythm section approximating the sprayed firing of multi-barrel cannons, and singer Morgan Lander recalling Linda Blair’s 1973 satanic possession with her feral blood-curdling shrieks. With the appropriately titled In the Black, the Ontario-based quartet make the leap from the alt-metal of 2007’s Funeral for Yesterday to relentless black metal that sounds so dark and evil, you’d swear these gals spent the last summer with church-burning Viking-rockers in Norway. Lander even stated in the album’s press release that she wanted In the Black to be the complete antithesis of Kittie’s last album. “Cut Throat” retains the band’s knack for catchy songwriting and with Lander segueing into her familiar singing voice on the song’s choruses, Kittie dares to make black metal more accessible. The sinister sounding “Sorrow I Know” is another standout that emerges with a menacing tone in the verse and powerful vocals that vine like ivy creeping around an artillery of instrumental juggernauts.