With total domestic sales in excess of 1.25 million, Kittie also approached the recording of In the Black as complete free agents, for their first time ever, writing and recording a record with absolutely no outside influences breathing down their necks. The results will make your skin crawl and the hair on the back of your neck stand at attention. In other words, the album is Kittie in all their unadulterated splendor, a colossal effort that combines everything fans have come to expect from the fearsome foursome, along with a few surprises. "My Plague" is the album's primal mating call, a sinister brood of Morgan's sadistic vocal dirges and growls, a swirling grind of guitars and an artillery spray of drum cover. "Forgive And Forget" is just as brutal, but laced by a melodic underbelly as soft as the song's guitar solos are scorching, and "Die My Darling" trades the death mask vocals for a melodic pitch and resonating gang vocal on the chorus. It's as filthy as anything Kittie have ever recorded before, but twice as inviting.