Until the End is the third studio album by Canadian heavy metal band Kittie, released on July 26, 2004, through Artemis Records.

The album was recorded in March 2004 with producer Steve Thompson at Long View Farm Studios in North Brookfield, Massachusetts.

Musically, it continued Kittie's transition away from their early nu metal sound, whilst placing a heavier emphasis on melody than on their previous two albums.

Kittie wrote the album while they were engaged in a lawsuit with Artemis, and its lyrics and artwork reflect the band's feelings of frustration and uncertainty during that period.

[8][11] Morgan wrote most of Until the End's guitar riffs, lyrics and melodies, with Mercedes and Arroyo contributing some additional arrangements and their own drum tracks and basslines to the album, respectively.

[12][13][14] Kittie performed several shows in June and July 2003,[15] before embarking on their Kiss of Infamy Tour with Motograter and 40 Below Summer, from October 18 to December 1, 2003.

[16] On both tours, the band debuted six new songs; "Look So Pretty",[17] "Career Suicide", "Until the End", "Pussy Sugar", "Burning Bridges", and "Loveless".

[43][44] Placing a heavier emphasis on melody than on their previous albums,[40][45][46][47] it contains heavy riffs, double bass drumming,[48] fluctuating time signatures,[40] and no guitar solos,[40] as well as screamed,[40] growled,[49] snarled[50] and clean vocals.

[40] According to Morgan Lander, the lyrics of the songs on Until the End reflect Kittie's feelings of frustration and uncertainty amidst their legal struggles with Artemis Records.

[9][14] Morgan said that the cover represented helplessness, "the end of innocence", and the feeling of "being suffocated and held down", the latter referring to Kittie's struggles with Artemis.

[67] AllMusic reviewer James Christopher Monger praised its heavy composition but noted an "adherence to formulaic modern metal clichés" on some of its later songs.

's Jill Mikkelson commented that the album's main selling point was Kittie's "juvenile riot grrrl attitude".

[69] George Smith of The Village Voice dismissed the album as "tenaciously mindless and effortlessly grim", comparing Kittie unfavourably with Slayer, Pungent Stench and Grave and commenting that "other than being a product of women, there's only one reason to recommend [Until the End]: It's marginally better than Auf der Maur".

's Nick Ruskell stated that Kittie had made significant improvements to their songwriting on Until the End; the latter said that the band "sounds more like their own ... than the Machine Head-ettes of old".

[38][63] Rock Hard's Jan Jaedike wrote that although the album's sound was not completely removed from Kittie's earlier nu metal output, its songs had "real hit character".

[65] Bjorn Randolph of Stylus Magazine argued that Mercedes' tight sense of groove and Morgan's "dual vocal personae" gave Kittie "the swing and the sing" necessary to differentiate themselves from other heavy metal bands.

[71] NME's Pete Cashmore criticized Kittie's lack of originality and attempts to incorporate "subtlety and nuance" into the thrash metal genre, which he felt was "to the detriment of a style that should always be about brutality and aural punishment".

David Perri, writing in The Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal: Volume 4: The '00s (2011), criticized its oft-"clumsy" songwriting and "cheap" production but considered it "a giant leap in the right direction for Kittie".

[43] In 2022, MetalSucks called the album Kittie's best, and a "perfect example of an awesome band proving their worth to the worthy after all of the fair-weather fans aimed their attention elsewhere".

[75] On August 11, 2004, Mercedes was hospitalized for internal bleeding, caused by a combination of stress and dehydration, prior to a show in Cleveland, Ohio.

[84] Due to their worsening financial situation, Morgan and Mercedes told Arroyo and Marx after Kittie finished touring that they would not be able to pay them a retainer.

[84][85][86] Arroyo left Kittie shortly thereafter to pursue work with her other band, Suicide City, which she felt allowed her to have "a more prominent role in the creative process".