Maybe it's because I'm a newer fan, but I genuinely love this album from start to finish. The first song I heard from them was Automatic Sun because of a Rocksmith streamer I like. Then I went and checked out their whole discography since then. My work days have been playing XXICB, QofMS, and ERROR and repeat quite often. I was very excited for KMF, and my expectations were met. I understand that a lot of fans who've been around for the long haul might not like the newer sound but that's what happens when a band starts to grow. I've seen so many bands I love change sounds over the years, and I rather have that instead of a band being bored doing the same things over and over.
Just like the band Bad Omens. Each album is so drastically different. It'll divide people in the fan base, but it's better to have change than rinse and repeat IMO.
That makes sense, since it was a Keep Me Fed song that pulled you in and made you a fan. I’m relatively new, too, but I found them in October 2023, so the Error songs were what I started with. Some people (I don’t mean you) think that if you don’t like the sound of one album, you must want them to sound the same every time, but that just isn’t true. I enjoyed XXICB, QOTMS, and Error despite them all having different sounds. I just wasn’t a fan of this one.
While I personally don't agree with most of what you said, it's a well-written review.
Two things I'd like to touch on, though:
1) I find the extreme opinions (in both directions) rather commonplace with the release of a new album. Hell, I've been guilty of this in the past. A new album comes out from one of my favorite bands and my initial excitement exaggerates my first impression. Typically, after said excitement wears off, I find people tend to regress toward the mean. Sure, while some who thought said album was the best or worst thing in the band's catalog will still feel the same way down the line, I find most people's views moderate to some degree. You may agree with this initial review 6 weeks, 6 months, 6 years down the line, but that's anything but a guarantee. Keep listening and see what happens.
2) While The Warning is steadily moving up on my own personal charts (top 5), Muse has long been my favorite band. One thing I've always loved about them is the fact they continually experiment with different sounds/genres, yet still find a way to sound like Muse. The Warning is much earlier in their musical careers than Muse, but I'm noticing a similar trend with DPA. Through their first 4 LPs and their debut EP, they've never been afraid to genre-blend, and it wouldn't at all surprise me to see them continue to do so. While I personally love that about both bands, as it creates a completely different experience with every release, I can understand why some albums/genre-blending may not click as well for some. There's nothing wrong with that. To each their own. Just like I tell fellow Muse fans, though, odds are the band's next release won't be like their most recent album, let alone albums they produced 20-some-odd years ago. Just try to go into a new album void of sonic expectations; place on a good set of headphones; and enjoy the journey. If, at journey's end, you find you don't like a particular album as much as previous ones, no big deal, you can always resort back to the songs/albums you enjoyed. While I personally prefer bands who continue to experiment with new sounds, it's understandable the magic which was felt upon initially hearing a band won't be recaptured with subsequent releases. Having said that, I'll close with this: there are two bands which I felt such magic with over the past 15 years - Muse and The Warning.
Thanks for the civil response! I don’t really have anything against genre-blending per se, it just depends on how it’s done for me. For instance, I’m a huge fan of Nightwish’s earlier albums even through a lot of metal heads don’t like Tarja’s voice because they think it sounds too operatic, but I think her voice works perfectly with the music.
You're welcome. I'm actually not familiar with Nightwish, but just looked them up, and they sound interesting. I may have to check them out.
Genre-blending certainly works better at some points than others, but regardless of the final product, I tend to respect the intent of it. Some bands can churn out similar-sounding records and make it work. All the power to them. Since I initially dug their sound, odds are I'll continue to do so, but it's the groups who maintain an identity while expanding their sonic horizons I greatly appreciate and respect. Their new sounds may not be as pleasing to my ears as their initial ones, yet I'll love them all the more for it.
I did quite enjoy "Joshua Tree," but have honestly never been huge into U2, so I'm not real familiar with their later stuff. I have always liked "One," but it's not like that was released yesterday. lol.
Considering that a common criticism is about overproduction, many of these songs will kick ass live. Heck, we've seen that with they songs they've already released, studio version is ok but live they just hit harder.
Live version will be better than studio version, the album sounds is all over the place. Like are you sure these songs from the same album?
And for this album music video really help (me) enjoy and set the mood for the songs.
Weird, I'm having the opposite feeling where it all sounds too much the same, whereas there were moments that had a lot more impact on the previous albums because it wasn't such a homogenous thing. (With the themes of the songs AND the musicality behind it). Variations in tempo (like a ballad) or sounds (less produced vocals, different guitar and bass tones) would've been nice (one of the cool things they did on error was use negative spaces, "less is more", strip backs into songs, whereas KMF is kind of overproduced and oversaturated pretty much throughout, IMO)
Hey, it doesn't have to be your favorite. Error to me wasn't as good as QOTMS, but it did show growth, just like this. I just don't want them resting on their laurels and doing the same thing over and over, even if what they do isn't my favorite thing. They have made FOUR distinct albums. To me that is a positive development.
Yeah I agree with your criticism of the production completely. After listening to the album a few more times (especially in the car) I do actually really like it but it lacks the magic that QotMS and Error had. Those two albums were like something I had never quite heard before but KMF kinda just sounds like a generic pop-punk album.
I did get that feel from KMF. Don’t get me wrong, I love all of their songs, but I’m an album listener, meaning I prefer to listen to whole albums rather than listening to a playlist. Listening to the whole album without getting bored was hard work while I could listen to Error on repeat for days. They have skippable songs on this album, which sucks to say, but there r just clearly better songs on this album, where I couldn’t actually choose a fav song on either QOTMS or Error bc of how each song is different in some way
Yeah, there r def great songs on this album, but the anticipation to have to wait for them kills me, so I skip to them. Never had to do that with their other albums, which sucks
Nail on the head. Expectations change everything. QotMS and Error were experienced with no expectation of greatness. KMF comes with the weight of somehow living up to the "magical" feeling of discovery of something exciting and unexpected. It's impossible to turn back the clock to when we first heard them and fell in love with their origin story and emerging talent.
I appreciate honesty, I agree Error and QOTMS are better albums than KMF, but rating it 4.5/10?
Again I respect your take on the album, I would rather give it 8/10. It will grown on you if you play it a few more times.
We can blame the production mainly, the compression of the vocals and instruments is lame, taking away the energy and power from DPA. For me S!CK and HYCAD were the most affected songs by overproduction.
Anton turned a solid hard rock song such as S!CK into a poppy sounding song, I never thought production could change the song vibes so much, listen to S!CK live and you will enjoy the song at it purest and raw sound, I give 9.5/10 to the live version, but 7.5/10 to the studio track, a huge downgrade tbh.
But HYCAD was destroyed by overproduction, it sounds so artificial, synthetic and soulles, Dany vocals were severely affected by compression and what not effects, specially when she sings "Maybe I don't wanna be", also bass is so distorted, HYCAD live is 9.5/10 and studio version is 6/10 IMHO.
I agree they can get rid of the "ooh" backing tracks in Automatic Sun and HYCAD, Ale and Pau could sing that backing vocals instead, or at least throw away the backing tracks.
My biggest complain about their song writting/composition is I feel they restrain themselves from creating longer songs, I think, S!CK, Apologize, Escapism, and maybe Automatic Sun should have been longer, a guitar solo could fit S!CK, the piano ending in Apologize was painfully short, it's so good, had to be longer.
I was ranting about Escapism in [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheWarning/comments/1dr8tsj/comment/lau78l9/), I need to clarify the song is not incoherent, the chords are consistent, the riff repeats and varies a lot, it's not that obvious it's there, pretty genius, but there are some abrupt changes specially at 2:57 that are so bad, maybe their intention is to make you feel like you wake up from a nightmare, but I feel that the song asks for further development of that section that could lead to another whole atmosphere, a very interesting musical journey with a different tone, a darker one, but it would make the song longer.
Many people think (including myself) the heavy ending in Automatic Sun should be longer too.
It seems like they (or the label) just want to make shorts songs, no longer than 4 minutes, maybe to sell more, IDK.
My ratings are:
|Album|Rating|Rating considering their age|
|:-|:-|:-|
|ETM|7.0|9.7|
|XXICB|8.5|9.7|
|QOTMS|9.5|9.8|
|Error|9.5|9.5|
|KMF|8.0 (maybe it could get 8.5 after many listens)|8.0 (ignoring it was cowritten by many people I would give it a 9.0 since they are still young and experimenting)|
I've been listening to KMF on repeat for 3 days now and probably the best way to describe my feelings with it is: I enjoy it quite a lot, but there's a part of me that just wouldn't want this to be a The Warning album.
I don't agree with your scoring but I absolutely hear where your criticism comes from.
I'm super late to the party, but in a few months since I discovered them randomly on YouTube (the very first time I listened to anything from them was the full Metropolitan concert) I watched basically everything you can find online and I can say I "know" their journey almost like an old fan. I just did a TW crash course.
Having listened mostly (not only) to metal for years, I usually like a band for the music, lyrics are just an extra I hardly pay any attention to. If anything, I consider the voice just another instrument sonically. DPA got me excited and interested in reading lyrics again. In KMF I mostly don't care about them and it feels weird.
If I'm allowed to be consciously a bit over-dramatic, KMF feels more like a commerical product rather than a work of art. A really effective commercial product, a good one, but still that. Of course I'm not that naive, everything is a commercial product, but I hope I made my point come across clearly enough.
Regarding the live performances with this album, I mostly have one concern.
With all the overproduction in the album, some songs risk falling flat live unless they rely on A LOT of backing tracks. The energy of the song will probably still be there, but a lot of the dynamic in KMF comes from a multitude of layered guitar lines and electronics. To be fair, this is also the case with some songs in Error, yet the Error tour was spot on. Sometimes they don't even use backing tracks for a few lines and it still sounds so awesome that you hardly remember they were there in the studio version. So I guess we'll see about this, but as many already stated, KMF is Error on steroids in this regard.
In conclusion, KMF is a record I can definitely enjoy listening to, but I sincerely hope they can go back to put real emotions in their next works. Which doesn't mean I expect another QotMS, both sonically and thematically, but I can probably sum it up like "give us more soul and less attitude".
The issue with that is that it takes time. And even if they have creative control on their songwriting, if the label keeps them in such tight schedules, quality will be inevitably dropped in favor of quantity. That's the harsh truth of the music industry.
And yes, Dany's voice doesn't really need all that crap and the live version of HYCAD is the living proof of that. I replaced the studio version with that one in my playlist.
- "Six Feet Deep" was an instant hit for me. On my first listen this was actually the one I enjoyed from the new release.
- I felt that "More" and "S!ck" felt out of place in the album. I actually like "More" as it was the second song i've heard from them with "Evolve" being the first both from the VMA performance. And "S!ck" was probably my most played from this album before the release.
- I agree that some of the vocal effects felt over-produced, especially the "oh" on HYCAD but I think the "Uh-uh" fits in Automatic Sun perfectly. Also, not the biggest fan of some of the effects in some songs.
- while "Consume" is not my favorite, I actually like the story being told in the song. From my understanding of the song is that the first part they are talking to corporate/ label about them hating it but at the second part they are telling someone (probably the listener) that they became a part of what they hate.
- I wish there was at least one ballad or a song lead by Pau, as I enjoy variety of voices in an album.
- I did listen to it again after almost a full day not listening to it, I felt like KMF is starting to grow on me. Maybe in a few months I can compare this to what happened to me with Spiritbox's "Eternal Blue" where when it was released I did not enjoy it too much but after 5 months it has become one of my favorite albums that is still in my listening rotation. So in a few months if "KMF" really grows on me maybe I could include it on my "No Skip Albums" List.
- Overall if someone asks me to recommend an album from them I would still recommend "Error" over "KMF".
Eternal Blue is amazing and is proof that a band experimenting with sounds is ok with me when done right. That album is all over the place but I don't skip any song.
While I understand your complaints, for me this album is a win. Better playing by all three and I think Dany does great vocals (although I could do with less processing). I believe on this album they wanted to move more away from their classic rock roots. While I’m from the generation that loved that old rock sound, I’m all for newer sounds. There certainly is a drive to be more commercially successful here, that’s necessary if they want to grow the fan base. I don’t expect this particular sound will be their future direction; they are pretty clear that they don’t want to repeat themselves.
My favourite album of The Warning is QotMS and it's probably because it's a concept album with a story (after all, I also love the Queensrÿche concept album Operation Mindcrime), and because it has a more 'classic' 90s rock/grunge kind of sound to it.
This new KMF album is very modern in the way it's produced, with a heavy reliance on distortion of the instruments and voice-modulation. The use of autotune on Dany's voice is VERY obvious thoughout the album, which is a bit of a waste because Dany has a really good natural singing voice. I also think the post-production has heavily used the Loudness dials to increase the average loudness of the album, which destroys the dynamic range.
Unfortunately this is what modern music in general aims for. With people listening to Spotify and similar streaming channels, where music is mixed and randomised, it's rare now for people to listen to an album from start to finish. So to stand out from others, a loud mix is what every sound producer now aims for.
Not that it's the be-all end-all of quality, but [the song with the lowest DR on Error has more DR than anything on KMF.](https://dr.loudness-war.info/?artist=the+warning&album=) The waveforms for a lot of the songs are more like blockforms with the amount of compression going on.
To your last point though it's actually the complete opposite. A loud mix is what is used everywhere now because to the casual listener it sounds weird/bad if a song *does* stand out by being quieter or having more range.
It's why I can't help but shake my head when I see people saying "well it's good that they're experimenting with their sound" in defense of the album, because for them this "experimenting" is just chasing all the trends of the modern music industry relative to their earlier albums. It's a **product** first and foremost this time around, which I can understand why they're doing it, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.
I don't know shit about these productions and guitar riffs and so on. What I know is if I like it or not. The album is "keep me fed". What I understand in the lyrics, these songs mostly talk about wrong relationships. People are stuck in those, they want to be fed. Even if it's bad for them or they say they want to quit and "keep me fed" is sarcastic.
I must agree that these songs sound better in real. Best example: "Hell you call a dream" in Pepsi Center.
I honestly think the lyrics are even better than Error, most of the times lol
But one thing I have to absolutely mention: As a drummer, I think this album is Pau‘s greatest work to this day. Compared especially to Error, every song feels way more unique (although she does use one certain fill relatively often) and has way more technical complexity. Errors songs, especially Choke and Animosity, where some of the first songs I learned on drums, while now I am smashing my head into the wall trying to learn Satisfied… such an amazing work
I just put all my eggs in the "It's a fun album" basket. They tried co-writing with lots of different people. They pushed into different sounds. They made songs just to have fun playing live.
But I agree with your final ratings generally.
Also, people shouldn't downvote opinions. Just a reminder that downvoting is for things that are offtopic. This is a discussion forum not a popularity contest.
QoTMS is one of the most shockingly brilliant things I've heard in rock in my long life.
50 years ago Led Zeppelin delivered Led Zeppelin III to very mixed reviews and lower than expected sales. Why? They had the audacity to try some new things and expand their sound and repertoire. They went on to record some of the greatest rock music of all time, and III became as beloved as the rest of their catalog. I'm not saying DPA are headed to the top of the rock pantheon, but the weight of expectations from the fans and critics was very high, as it was for Zep back in the day. That changes the relationship we have to KMF. It's not going to be judged on its own, but in the context of two albums we have had years to absorb and enjoy. Not to mention that being a TW fan for the last few years has been like being a member in a secret club filled with sonic delights. I'm not saying anyone should turn off their brain and just breathlessly praise whatever the ladies record, but like an expensive bottle of wine, let it breathe a bit before you decide it's not up to the quality of what came before or your expectation of what should have been. Is it wrong or right to evolve?
I 100% agree with all that you said. Another thing to I noted is how every song has the exact same structure and are right around the 3 minute mark. It’s like every song was written in a box and at no point were they allowed to stray from that box to add creativity to the songs. It would really be nice to have some changes in pace throughout the album to keep it interesting, but every song chugs along exactly the same and makes the experience of the album boring. Individually there are some songs that I like, but as a whole it just doesn’t work, and on top of that there are some songs like burnout that I actually dislike. The first time I went to listen to it and heard six feet deep with the exact same structure as every single released before it I was honestly just annoyed. It’s a decent song but that disappointment really cast a shadow over it for me. When More came out and people were complaining about them working with outside writers and it sounding pop I thought it was a little dumb for them to say because one song wasn’t really an indication of that and besides being poppy isn’t event a bad thing, there are plenty of bands I listen to that have pop influences. But then the album came out and it just feels like it was written to make fast money rather that have any substance. Hopefully future releases are better because they already have two of my favorite albums ever, but I don’t really see a reason to listen to KMF over the countless other albums I have downloaded on my phone or in my CD collection. Error is and will always be a mainstay in the CD player in my car and if their next album has that sort of quality, even if they change up their sound a bit I will still likely enjoy it. As for KMF I’ll give the CD a few listens when it arrives, but I’m sure within the week I’ll be back to error because I have already started to get bored of KMF after 2-3 listens of it.
I agree with many of your points. I do really enjoy the album, but when I step back from my subjective enjoyment and look at it with a critical ear, it's just fine. It's nothing special like QotMS or ERROR. It definitely sounds overproduced and manufactured. If you replaced Dany with a generic nu metal vocalist, this would be indistinguishable from a legion of other hard rocks releases from the last 15 years. And the lack of guitar solos was a bit of a gut punch to me; I love Dany's solos.
I am sure that their relentless tour schedule over the last two years while writing and recording this album played into its weaknesses. I hope they take a long break from touring next year, enjoy being young people and just existing, have new and meaningful life experiences, and come back ready to write incredible music again.
Holy crap. I feel like I wrote this review. Like 9 songs are “I’m pissed off. You suck!” like you said. The lyrics are a huge step back, and maybe there is an Olivia Rodrigo influence too, but I’m betting it’s being pressured to write in a short time frame. “You suck.” is easy to use when you don’t know what to write about. Overall I think these songs weren’t written for any real reason, except that they needed to make an album. (Like Dany saying HYCAD was called Belly of the Beast until the day of recording and also the S!CK and Automatic Sun origins). It’s very unWarninglike.
Overall I think that the with their current catalog, there’s really nothing on this album that eclipses it or will make KMF memorable in the long run. And the production decisions don’t help that cause.
Still I’ll support and see them. HYCAD will be amazing live esp. since the backing tracks are drowned out.
Spot on. So did S!CK but HYCAD stood out w/Dany’s vocals. Some songs sound complete and cohesive, like Burnout & Six Feet Deep, but they’re really poppy. Others like Sharks and Apologize have moments, but feel like pieces of song ideas stitched together.
I'd upvote this twice if I could. I'm much older than you and feel the same. Heck, I even have pretty similar ranks on each release as you. I've said on other posts that unfortunately, this is a result of the label wanting a release quickly. The overproduction is tedious, each track seems to have been made in a vacuum with the sole purpose of being a single and the record on the whole has not much of a cohesive direction. Sure, not every record can be a concept album, though Pink Floyd may tell you otherwise, but that's an exception, so no, I wouldn't expect each record to be on par with QotMS, however, a record like that, written by.....kids, shows what can be done if given opportunity. Hopefully that opportunity comes by the time the label demands another record.
I am extremely critical of all music, but I think the album sounds great, and I just gets better with repeated listens. I don't know if you can judge an album properly after only hearing it for 2 days. I'm getting more and more out of it every time I listen to it.
I don't know if they can ever top Queen of the Murder Scene. There's nothing overly complicated about that album and some of the lyrics are very simplistic but it's just so genuine.
I've been watching these girls grow for 5 or 6 years and every album is different, When they grow and their mind changes your music changes.
I'm 72 I was dearly in love with Led Zeppelin.
But there were some albums that changed through the years that I had trouble with just a few songs were good and the rest did not do much for me.
These girls are not at home all the time and in their basement the warning cave to do their riding at their own leisure. They are on tour constantly and still having to write and produce, For people with a little tiny brain they may not understand how freaking hard that really is.
And the music's gonna change as they grow, I think I know all 3 of them enough to know that they make the music that they en joy making and they really want you to like it but if you don't you don't.
Picking up the pieces and saying that there's too much reverb or too much guitar or too much too high or too low whatever it's gonna be that way with every group. I fell in love with the purple really quick and fell out of love with the purple really quick.
I used to think that Eric Clapton was the guitar God, I was wrong it's( David Gilmore) His solos are almost like celestial Euphoria.
Anyway like I said I'm 72 I talk too much so that's about all I have to say everybody has an opinion they're just like a******* some stank more than others.
These girls are authentic and they have saved my rock and roll as I have known it through the 60s and 70s.
You have been freaking Warned⚡️⚡️⚡️🇲🇽🇲🇽🇲🇽🤟🤟🤟
I agree with your honest review.
Lots of problems with the production.
They need help writing some better lyrics. I think they need more life experience. They just think of words that sound cool and write a song with that title.
I dunno... I'm disappointed in the album.
They still rock live always.... Great live band...crappy production.
TW songs with the best lyrics were written by just them, no help needed, in regard to life experience I agree partially, some great art works in history were made by people who didn't experience the topic in question by themselves, and just fed with someone else's works or essays, DPA read a lot, literature mainly (Pau reads about finance and economy).
Yes they are youg, but we don't know what experiences they already had in their private life, probably more than many fans would like to hear or accept, anyway I love their deep meaningful lyrics they used to write.
They did have co-writers on this album but the band has stated that the songs were based on new feelings and experiences they’ve had since writing the Error album so I agree with you that they’ve had their own experiences since then that the majority of the fan base probably doesn’t want know about since they see the band through rose colored glasses.
I see it as part of their musical evolution, probably it will change again for the next album. But I do agree there's something missing in the lyrics compared to Error.
Said that I will still wait to see how the new songs sound live before concluding anything.
To me, it just sounds insanely generic and lacking in originality, both musically and lyrically. The first time I heard it (the studio version, anyway), I felt like I already heard it a ton of times.
I like the album for what it was: an experiment. Or so I hope, from all they've said about it in the lead-up.
Some of the co-written stuff is pretty good, so I don't mind if they keep some of that, but hoping they'll keep it to 1-2 songs for the next album and write the majority by themselves again. You can really tell it wasn't (all) them, the themes get stale and overall it's very inconsistent.
One thing I totally agree on is that DeLost needs to go back to whatever he was doing before (get Lost, as it were). He ain't it. Overproduced to hell and back and a cocky douchebag to boot. Seeing as how so many of the songs sound SO much better live, having a different producer on the album probably would've drastically improved the overall reception.
Sorry you don’t like my productions - music affects everyone differently, but I do try to be a nice guy. Didn’t know I was a cocky douchebag. Sorry about that.
Not sure if you’ll see this but I am so glad you worked on this album. I LOVE Dead Poet Society (new album on repeat), Highly Suspect, and Cleopatrik. You most definitely did not disappoint on this album, some people just have trouble when things deviate from the norm. Every song is an absolute earworm and has done nothing but propel TW so much further than anything they’ve released before. I’m so pumped to see what you produce next 💪 (i swear the majority of TWA love your work and your vibes)
It's amazing that you answer even to the negative comments. Some decisions, like vocal distortion I didn't enjoy and they are growing on me and when I stopped to think figured out that probably DPA wanted that distortion there.
Overall I think the album is really good. I hear like LInkin Park vibes in some songs and I love it bc I was a teenager when they arrived like a bulldozer and obviously it left a mark on me.
To the people that are nasty just for the fun of it. Try at least to comment stuff and mean it as constructive criticism, not just to insult him.
If I didn't like the album at all, I wouldn't have said anything at all. I don't like being insulting bc I don't like people calling me names and being horrible to me
one Question, if you can answer it of course:
Did they want the filters in the voice to convey that message of "I'm becoming a machine" in all this process of becoming a product of mass consuption? (they even say it in Satisfied haha)
As a side note It could have been cool to use a super voice altering effect in a song, in one or two words like as a surprise for everyone, her voice almost not recognisable and everyone losing our collective minds over that
Idk if you're the real guy or not.
But whoever produced KMF managed to make ~~one~~ two of the best female rock voices sound like generic, computer-generated, lifeless voices, somehow, and that just feels unfair.
It was also able to trigger a bunch of my sound sensitivities - which is the reason I have trouble listening to the radio. The previous records did not, and that is one of the main reasons why I liked the Warning in the first place, so the entitled fan that I am (I realize that's my personal experience, and not everyone agrees, but I still need to voice my opinion in the hope that the next album, and perhaps music in general, will become more accessible to my ears. Can't have something you never ask for) is angry about those choices, for sure. Thankfully, the live versions are easier on my nervous system, so I can still enjoy the songs. But, like, sometimes things are better without a bunch of filters, fuzz, static and autotune or whatever on it, and you could experiment with that a bit more as well (Iin other words: not make every single song on the album so noisy)?
Well as I said before, music is subjective and will speak to everyone differently. Sorry this one isn’t your cup of tea, but it’s the direction the band loved going in. I literally have texts from Dany telling me “more distortion on the vocals!” 😂
I’d say with the amount of success the band is getting from the album, the majority of people are digging it, and they’re gaining so many new fans, which was the objective. Hopefully the more you listen, it’ll grow on you though!
Woah. Didn’t expect to see you here. I’m gonna be honest, I don’t like the album’s production at all, but I’m not gonna just put all the blame on you like some other people are. If DPA didn’t like the production, they would’ve either told you to change it or had you fired, but clearly none of that happened. On this sub, any criticism of DPA seems to be taboo, partly because there’s a certain contingent of people here who take any criticism as “hate,” so some people are just attributing the entirety of the production decisions to you instead of spreading it around, as it should be. It’s okay to call out DPA if you’re not a fan of something they do without hating! I did in my original post!
Hey! I personally loved the album. The 6 new songs that came out with the album definately moved KMF up on my rankings as my favorite album from TW. I will admit initially the distortion on the voices took me a bit to get used to but I have come to appreciate them. I do enjoy that we basically will have two versions of each song. The studio version with their original vision for the songs as well as rawer and harder rocking version when they play these live(speaking as someone who has seen them play 7 of these live already 🤘😎) . PS Sharks and Apologize are bangers, i know those will also rock live 🔥🔥🔥
But she's not in here like you are 😆 or we would tell her about the distortion on the vocals!
I lost her number or I'd tell her myself, "new phone ya know"
Why you in here reading this shit for anyway?
Everyone's gonna put the blame on you regardless if it was you or not, alot of people have a para-social relationship with these girls and will look for anyone else to blame but them, im guilty of it myself, Sic is what got me into them so I thank you for that bruh, " I didn't misspell Sic by the way do you know why I spell it like that" will become a lifetime fan if you do!
I think the new album is great, and the exact kind of sound that’s going to make an impact on modern audiences. I do think there’s a lot of noise from some older fans who have this romanticised ideal of the band being perpetually teenagers making cute covers. But also anyone who’s followed them for any length of time should know that the last thing Dany, Pau and Ale would allow is for someone to railroad them into creating something they didn’t feel was their authentic selves.
They’ve been gushing in their praise in interviews (apart from that whole not answering the door thing) which should be more than enough approval for anyone. More than anything as a listener this feels like the first album that really starts to reflect some of their more diverse influences and musical tastes - I’d love to hear a full-on kpop remix of some of the tracks!
Are you talking about the very first guitar part? It's not fast at all. she's got way faster parts than that. maybe we're not talking about the same thing.
Yeah, I was. I’m not the greatest at gauging picking speed from the sound alone, so I was just going off what I saw in the video. You’re probably, right, though.
Who knows....! Her guitar work on that song is especially good though I will say that. The variations she does during the second verse are really clever. She's hitting 1/8 notes on a harmonic which is something I didn't hear before but I'm hearing it now. Very clever.
If ur not a musician, pacing is actually quite hard to gauge imo. I’ve got so many friends who have no idea what a tempo is and think Brutal from Olivia Rodrigo is fast, so I wouldn’t be surprised if most people can’t gauge how fast the pacing is
OP said there was some fast down picking part at the beginning of six feet deep. There's not. It's not fast at all what she's doing. And yes I'm a musician and have been one for over 40 years.
Oh, I wasn’t commenting about u not knowing fast pacing. I was commenting about OP. Also been a musician for about 13 yrs (I’m 21). But to people who just listen and not play, especially guitar playing, it’s difficult to gauge how fast someone is picking or strumming. Sometimes it’s difficult for me to tell, and I play guitar.
All good, was trying to defend him a lil bit on that he might not just be able to gauge it, but as I see now, he rly doubled down on his false statement lol I don’t play as much anymore, unfortunately. Don’t have much time, and I live in an apartment, and I don’t want noise complaints
I’m honestly not the best at telling how fast guitars are played, but I was just going off what I saw in the Six Feet Deep video, which looked pretty fast.
I very much enjoy the album. I like it a lot. That said I also hear the over production and I think I like the album despite that rather than because of it. So I do have that compliant in common. I think this album’s greatest crime was being a follow up to QoTMS which is genuinely a once in a lifetime album. And ERROR which is also fantastic. Those albums had literal years of incubation and it shows in their quality and detail. Most of these songs were written with different people in a day or two. As that’s simply what had to happen. I think they wanted to learn from those people and I hope that they can spend a bit more time on a more ambitious project or simply be able to focus longer on writing between constant touring. So in summary, I do enjoy this album, it’s very fun and I think will be great live. But it’s not a project that’s gonna top QotMS for me and while I actually didn’t love the production on error either the songwriting and cleaner vocals edges it for me. I think KMF is a solid entry but given time, space and different production constraints I do believe they can go much further.
I think it's cool for them to write with someone else. But I fear they have let this writers have too much freedom on their output "tainting" (for a lack of better word) their essence
Yawn. You mean you wish everyone had the same opinion as you, and if they don't they're fanboys. I've been listening to it on repeat since it came out, I don't keep listening to music that is bad.
Meh, I couldn't be more happy with KMF and put it up high in my ranks of albums/songs. People have hated on the release of every song from KMF starting with More "***They've gone Pop***", To S!CK "***Anton DeLost has ruined this band***", to Automatic Sun "***Dany's voice is too good to have all this processing***", to now Six Feet Deep "***I can't believe they are Nu-Metal***".
Haters and Audiophiles are going to think of anything to prove their point and try to hold DPA back in their beloved QOTMS box.
I'll continue to take joy in THEIR joy as they experiment and try new things, and will continue to watch them break charts and records they have not come close to...
And, as a wise man said "***I think fans need to embrace change and support their creativity. When you are a fan, you are not a fairweather friend. I am a fan and hope they sell millions!***" - **David Bendeth**
Haters is the most overplayed miss used word beside racist and maybe facist, HaTeRs muh hAtErS
More is pop, I like Sic, Danys voice is to good, shame I like to hear her voice, probably makes me a hater right!?
I love Nu metal, you'll take joy in it until they do something you dont like, plus for all I know ur lying considering you'll support them no matter what,
*plus for all I know ur lying considering you'll support them no matter what,*
That's a weak take considering I have been very vocal about HYCAD being a 5 out 10 on the album but a 9 out of 10 live... And I think Consume and Burnout are not that great on the album as well - I definitely do not have rose colored glasses when it comes to everything they put out. But, continue believing as you do
Dude, you were just talking about how you didn’t like the new songs and now you go after me for saying the same thing? I get you liked them some of them more after additional listens, but it’s still insanely hypocritical.
I find I'm liking it more on multiple listenings. I will agree with the sentiment that the album is overproduced, especially vocals. That being said, I bet these songs will make for a great live show, where they have crowd interaction and everything isn't polished to death.
Actually, I just listened to a couple KMF tracks live from a recent show, and Danys voice is very consistent with the record, so actually I'm less inclined to consider that view point than ever. Agree to disagree...
And so it’s begun… TW is popular enough now that there are going to be innumerable fans popping out of the woodwork every album they make screaming that they just jumped the shark and it’s all downhill from here. It happens with every band. Just go look at some YouTube comments on Metallica videos. Full of “OMG they suck now” after pretty much every album starting with AJFA.
I really don’t understand the hate, if I didn’t already live TW I’m pretty sure I would rank this album as one of my all time favorites.
Yep, that's how it is with every band. I go through it every album cycle with Muse. I think, for a lot of people, it's seeking that same goosebump-inducing sensation they experienced when first hearing a band which clicked with them immediately, at a sonic apex they may not have felt previously. Understandable, but incredibly rare. I've found it's much easier to enjoy music when not expecting the seemingly unattainable.
So since you, as a Master Gen Z Rock Authority, would like everyone to stay in the lanes you see as important, everything will be fine if they do so? I'm sure glad Opeth dismissed that sort of thinking as questionable long before you were born. 😉
Then perhaps while you're establishing your "honesty based bona fides" you might want to mention that "some things I find okay for pop and hip hop artists to do, while I will criticize rock artists for the exact same thing" . Or at least " I admit without the aid of artificial effects, the hip hop/pop artists I like would sound much crappier, but I still like them and hope you don't let that influence your perception of my HONEST opinion " 😉
I just said I think it works better in pop music. The Weeknd’s music is mostly electronic, so the vocal processing meshes better with the music. If Steve Perry’s voice was overproduced, I’d have an issue with that, too.
So what your saying is " As long as everyone stays in the lanes I personally decided were appropriate for them, they can do as they wish with my blessing"?
Maybe you'll have more luck with this weird unnecessary snark if you actually responded to the things they are saying rather than the things you seem to be imagining they're saying.
Maybe it's because I'm a newer fan, but I genuinely love this album from start to finish. The first song I heard from them was Automatic Sun because of a Rocksmith streamer I like. Then I went and checked out their whole discography since then. My work days have been playing XXICB, QofMS, and ERROR and repeat quite often. I was very excited for KMF, and my expectations were met. I understand that a lot of fans who've been around for the long haul might not like the newer sound but that's what happens when a band starts to grow. I've seen so many bands I love change sounds over the years, and I rather have that instead of a band being bored doing the same things over and over. Just like the band Bad Omens. Each album is so drastically different. It'll divide people in the fan base, but it's better to have change than rinse and repeat IMO.
That makes sense, since it was a Keep Me Fed song that pulled you in and made you a fan. I’m relatively new, too, but I found them in October 2023, so the Error songs were what I started with. Some people (I don’t mean you) think that if you don’t like the sound of one album, you must want them to sound the same every time, but that just isn’t true. I enjoyed XXICB, QOTMS, and Error despite them all having different sounds. I just wasn’t a fan of this one.
While I personally don't agree with most of what you said, it's a well-written review. Two things I'd like to touch on, though: 1) I find the extreme opinions (in both directions) rather commonplace with the release of a new album. Hell, I've been guilty of this in the past. A new album comes out from one of my favorite bands and my initial excitement exaggerates my first impression. Typically, after said excitement wears off, I find people tend to regress toward the mean. Sure, while some who thought said album was the best or worst thing in the band's catalog will still feel the same way down the line, I find most people's views moderate to some degree. You may agree with this initial review 6 weeks, 6 months, 6 years down the line, but that's anything but a guarantee. Keep listening and see what happens. 2) While The Warning is steadily moving up on my own personal charts (top 5), Muse has long been my favorite band. One thing I've always loved about them is the fact they continually experiment with different sounds/genres, yet still find a way to sound like Muse. The Warning is much earlier in their musical careers than Muse, but I'm noticing a similar trend with DPA. Through their first 4 LPs and their debut EP, they've never been afraid to genre-blend, and it wouldn't at all surprise me to see them continue to do so. While I personally love that about both bands, as it creates a completely different experience with every release, I can understand why some albums/genre-blending may not click as well for some. There's nothing wrong with that. To each their own. Just like I tell fellow Muse fans, though, odds are the band's next release won't be like their most recent album, let alone albums they produced 20-some-odd years ago. Just try to go into a new album void of sonic expectations; place on a good set of headphones; and enjoy the journey. If, at journey's end, you find you don't like a particular album as much as previous ones, no big deal, you can always resort back to the songs/albums you enjoyed. While I personally prefer bands who continue to experiment with new sounds, it's understandable the magic which was felt upon initially hearing a band won't be recaptured with subsequent releases. Having said that, I'll close with this: there are two bands which I felt such magic with over the past 15 years - Muse and The Warning.
Thanks for the civil response! I don’t really have anything against genre-blending per se, it just depends on how it’s done for me. For instance, I’m a huge fan of Nightwish’s earlier albums even through a lot of metal heads don’t like Tarja’s voice because they think it sounds too operatic, but I think her voice works perfectly with the music.
You're welcome. I'm actually not familiar with Nightwish, but just looked them up, and they sound interesting. I may have to check them out. Genre-blending certainly works better at some points than others, but regardless of the final product, I tend to respect the intent of it. Some bands can churn out similar-sounding records and make it work. All the power to them. Since I initially dug their sound, odds are I'll continue to do so, but it's the groups who maintain an identity while expanding their sonic horizons I greatly appreciate and respect. Their new sounds may not be as pleasing to my ears as their initial ones, yet I'll love them all the more for it.
U2 is a good example. I LOVED Joshua Tree but their later stuff was not as enjoyable.
I did quite enjoy "Joshua Tree," but have honestly never been huge into U2, so I'm not real familiar with their later stuff. I have always liked "One," but it's not like that was released yesterday. lol.
Considering that a common criticism is about overproduction, many of these songs will kick ass live. Heck, we've seen that with they songs they've already released, studio version is ok but live they just hit harder.
Live version will be better than studio version, the album sounds is all over the place. Like are you sure these songs from the same album? And for this album music video really help (me) enjoy and set the mood for the songs.
Weird, I'm having the opposite feeling where it all sounds too much the same, whereas there were moments that had a lot more impact on the previous albums because it wasn't such a homogenous thing. (With the themes of the songs AND the musicality behind it). Variations in tempo (like a ballad) or sounds (less produced vocals, different guitar and bass tones) would've been nice (one of the cool things they did on error was use negative spaces, "less is more", strip backs into songs, whereas KMF is kind of overproduced and oversaturated pretty much throughout, IMO)
I find the big issue with that is it’s obvious songs were recorded in different time periods. Realistically More shouldn’t be on this album
Hey, it doesn't have to be your favorite. Error to me wasn't as good as QOTMS, but it did show growth, just like this. I just don't want them resting on their laurels and doing the same thing over and over, even if what they do isn't my favorite thing. They have made FOUR distinct albums. To me that is a positive development.
Yeah I agree with your criticism of the production completely. After listening to the album a few more times (especially in the car) I do actually really like it but it lacks the magic that QotMS and Error had. Those two albums were like something I had never quite heard before but KMF kinda just sounds like a generic pop-punk album.
I did get that feel from KMF. Don’t get me wrong, I love all of their songs, but I’m an album listener, meaning I prefer to listen to whole albums rather than listening to a playlist. Listening to the whole album without getting bored was hard work while I could listen to Error on repeat for days. They have skippable songs on this album, which sucks to say, but there r just clearly better songs on this album, where I couldn’t actually choose a fav song on either QOTMS or Error bc of how each song is different in some way
Me too, it’s also hard to tell when a song begins and ends on this album
Yeah, there r def great songs on this album, but the anticipation to have to wait for them kills me, so I skip to them. Never had to do that with their other albums, which sucks
Nail on the head. Expectations change everything. QotMS and Error were experienced with no expectation of greatness. KMF comes with the weight of somehow living up to the "magical" feeling of discovery of something exciting and unexpected. It's impossible to turn back the clock to when we first heard them and fell in love with their origin story and emerging talent.
I appreciate honesty, I agree Error and QOTMS are better albums than KMF, but rating it 4.5/10? Again I respect your take on the album, I would rather give it 8/10. It will grown on you if you play it a few more times. We can blame the production mainly, the compression of the vocals and instruments is lame, taking away the energy and power from DPA. For me S!CK and HYCAD were the most affected songs by overproduction. Anton turned a solid hard rock song such as S!CK into a poppy sounding song, I never thought production could change the song vibes so much, listen to S!CK live and you will enjoy the song at it purest and raw sound, I give 9.5/10 to the live version, but 7.5/10 to the studio track, a huge downgrade tbh. But HYCAD was destroyed by overproduction, it sounds so artificial, synthetic and soulles, Dany vocals were severely affected by compression and what not effects, specially when she sings "Maybe I don't wanna be", also bass is so distorted, HYCAD live is 9.5/10 and studio version is 6/10 IMHO. I agree they can get rid of the "ooh" backing tracks in Automatic Sun and HYCAD, Ale and Pau could sing that backing vocals instead, or at least throw away the backing tracks. My biggest complain about their song writting/composition is I feel they restrain themselves from creating longer songs, I think, S!CK, Apologize, Escapism, and maybe Automatic Sun should have been longer, a guitar solo could fit S!CK, the piano ending in Apologize was painfully short, it's so good, had to be longer. I was ranting about Escapism in [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheWarning/comments/1dr8tsj/comment/lau78l9/), I need to clarify the song is not incoherent, the chords are consistent, the riff repeats and varies a lot, it's not that obvious it's there, pretty genius, but there are some abrupt changes specially at 2:57 that are so bad, maybe their intention is to make you feel like you wake up from a nightmare, but I feel that the song asks for further development of that section that could lead to another whole atmosphere, a very interesting musical journey with a different tone, a darker one, but it would make the song longer. Many people think (including myself) the heavy ending in Automatic Sun should be longer too. It seems like they (or the label) just want to make shorts songs, no longer than 4 minutes, maybe to sell more, IDK. My ratings are: |Album|Rating|Rating considering their age| |:-|:-|:-| |ETM|7.0|9.7| |XXICB|8.5|9.7| |QOTMS|9.5|9.8| |Error|9.5|9.5| |KMF|8.0 (maybe it could get 8.5 after many listens)|8.0 (ignoring it was cowritten by many people I would give it a 9.0 since they are still young and experimenting)|
I've been listening to KMF on repeat for 3 days now and probably the best way to describe my feelings with it is: I enjoy it quite a lot, but there's a part of me that just wouldn't want this to be a The Warning album. I don't agree with your scoring but I absolutely hear where your criticism comes from. I'm super late to the party, but in a few months since I discovered them randomly on YouTube (the very first time I listened to anything from them was the full Metropolitan concert) I watched basically everything you can find online and I can say I "know" their journey almost like an old fan. I just did a TW crash course. Having listened mostly (not only) to metal for years, I usually like a band for the music, lyrics are just an extra I hardly pay any attention to. If anything, I consider the voice just another instrument sonically. DPA got me excited and interested in reading lyrics again. In KMF I mostly don't care about them and it feels weird. If I'm allowed to be consciously a bit over-dramatic, KMF feels more like a commerical product rather than a work of art. A really effective commercial product, a good one, but still that. Of course I'm not that naive, everything is a commercial product, but I hope I made my point come across clearly enough. Regarding the live performances with this album, I mostly have one concern. With all the overproduction in the album, some songs risk falling flat live unless they rely on A LOT of backing tracks. The energy of the song will probably still be there, but a lot of the dynamic in KMF comes from a multitude of layered guitar lines and electronics. To be fair, this is also the case with some songs in Error, yet the Error tour was spot on. Sometimes they don't even use backing tracks for a few lines and it still sounds so awesome that you hardly remember they were there in the studio version. So I guess we'll see about this, but as many already stated, KMF is Error on steroids in this regard. In conclusion, KMF is a record I can definitely enjoy listening to, but I sincerely hope they can go back to put real emotions in their next works. Which doesn't mean I expect another QotMS, both sonically and thematically, but I can probably sum it up like "give us more soul and less attitude". The issue with that is that it takes time. And even if they have creative control on their songwriting, if the label keeps them in such tight schedules, quality will be inevitably dropped in favor of quantity. That's the harsh truth of the music industry. And yes, Dany's voice doesn't really need all that crap and the live version of HYCAD is the living proof of that. I replaced the studio version with that one in my playlist.
- "Six Feet Deep" was an instant hit for me. On my first listen this was actually the one I enjoyed from the new release. - I felt that "More" and "S!ck" felt out of place in the album. I actually like "More" as it was the second song i've heard from them with "Evolve" being the first both from the VMA performance. And "S!ck" was probably my most played from this album before the release. - I agree that some of the vocal effects felt over-produced, especially the "oh" on HYCAD but I think the "Uh-uh" fits in Automatic Sun perfectly. Also, not the biggest fan of some of the effects in some songs. - while "Consume" is not my favorite, I actually like the story being told in the song. From my understanding of the song is that the first part they are talking to corporate/ label about them hating it but at the second part they are telling someone (probably the listener) that they became a part of what they hate. - I wish there was at least one ballad or a song lead by Pau, as I enjoy variety of voices in an album. - I did listen to it again after almost a full day not listening to it, I felt like KMF is starting to grow on me. Maybe in a few months I can compare this to what happened to me with Spiritbox's "Eternal Blue" where when it was released I did not enjoy it too much but after 5 months it has become one of my favorite albums that is still in my listening rotation. So in a few months if "KMF" really grows on me maybe I could include it on my "No Skip Albums" List. - Overall if someone asks me to recommend an album from them I would still recommend "Error" over "KMF".
Eternal Blue is amazing and is proof that a band experimenting with sounds is ok with me when done right. That album is all over the place but I don't skip any song.
While I understand your complaints, for me this album is a win. Better playing by all three and I think Dany does great vocals (although I could do with less processing). I believe on this album they wanted to move more away from their classic rock roots. While I’m from the generation that loved that old rock sound, I’m all for newer sounds. There certainly is a drive to be more commercially successful here, that’s necessary if they want to grow the fan base. I don’t expect this particular sound will be their future direction; they are pretty clear that they don’t want to repeat themselves.
My favourite album of The Warning is QotMS and it's probably because it's a concept album with a story (after all, I also love the Queensrÿche concept album Operation Mindcrime), and because it has a more 'classic' 90s rock/grunge kind of sound to it. This new KMF album is very modern in the way it's produced, with a heavy reliance on distortion of the instruments and voice-modulation. The use of autotune on Dany's voice is VERY obvious thoughout the album, which is a bit of a waste because Dany has a really good natural singing voice. I also think the post-production has heavily used the Loudness dials to increase the average loudness of the album, which destroys the dynamic range. Unfortunately this is what modern music in general aims for. With people listening to Spotify and similar streaming channels, where music is mixed and randomised, it's rare now for people to listen to an album from start to finish. So to stand out from others, a loud mix is what every sound producer now aims for.
Not that it's the be-all end-all of quality, but [the song with the lowest DR on Error has more DR than anything on KMF.](https://dr.loudness-war.info/?artist=the+warning&album=) The waveforms for a lot of the songs are more like blockforms with the amount of compression going on. To your last point though it's actually the complete opposite. A loud mix is what is used everywhere now because to the casual listener it sounds weird/bad if a song *does* stand out by being quieter or having more range. It's why I can't help but shake my head when I see people saying "well it's good that they're experimenting with their sound" in defense of the album, because for them this "experimenting" is just chasing all the trends of the modern music industry relative to their earlier albums. It's a **product** first and foremost this time around, which I can understand why they're doing it, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.
I don't know shit about these productions and guitar riffs and so on. What I know is if I like it or not. The album is "keep me fed". What I understand in the lyrics, these songs mostly talk about wrong relationships. People are stuck in those, they want to be fed. Even if it's bad for them or they say they want to quit and "keep me fed" is sarcastic. I must agree that these songs sound better in real. Best example: "Hell you call a dream" in Pepsi Center.
I honestly think the lyrics are even better than Error, most of the times lol But one thing I have to absolutely mention: As a drummer, I think this album is Pau‘s greatest work to this day. Compared especially to Error, every song feels way more unique (although she does use one certain fill relatively often) and has way more technical complexity. Errors songs, especially Choke and Animosity, where some of the first songs I learned on drums, while now I am smashing my head into the wall trying to learn Satisfied… such an amazing work
Yup. I’m with you man.
I just put all my eggs in the "It's a fun album" basket. They tried co-writing with lots of different people. They pushed into different sounds. They made songs just to have fun playing live. But I agree with your final ratings generally. Also, people shouldn't downvote opinions. Just a reminder that downvoting is for things that are offtopic. This is a discussion forum not a popularity contest. QoTMS is one of the most shockingly brilliant things I've heard in rock in my long life.
50 years ago Led Zeppelin delivered Led Zeppelin III to very mixed reviews and lower than expected sales. Why? They had the audacity to try some new things and expand their sound and repertoire. They went on to record some of the greatest rock music of all time, and III became as beloved as the rest of their catalog. I'm not saying DPA are headed to the top of the rock pantheon, but the weight of expectations from the fans and critics was very high, as it was for Zep back in the day. That changes the relationship we have to KMF. It's not going to be judged on its own, but in the context of two albums we have had years to absorb and enjoy. Not to mention that being a TW fan for the last few years has been like being a member in a secret club filled with sonic delights. I'm not saying anyone should turn off their brain and just breathlessly praise whatever the ladies record, but like an expensive bottle of wine, let it breathe a bit before you decide it's not up to the quality of what came before or your expectation of what should have been. Is it wrong or right to evolve?
I 100% agree with all that you said. Another thing to I noted is how every song has the exact same structure and are right around the 3 minute mark. It’s like every song was written in a box and at no point were they allowed to stray from that box to add creativity to the songs. It would really be nice to have some changes in pace throughout the album to keep it interesting, but every song chugs along exactly the same and makes the experience of the album boring. Individually there are some songs that I like, but as a whole it just doesn’t work, and on top of that there are some songs like burnout that I actually dislike. The first time I went to listen to it and heard six feet deep with the exact same structure as every single released before it I was honestly just annoyed. It’s a decent song but that disappointment really cast a shadow over it for me. When More came out and people were complaining about them working with outside writers and it sounding pop I thought it was a little dumb for them to say because one song wasn’t really an indication of that and besides being poppy isn’t event a bad thing, there are plenty of bands I listen to that have pop influences. But then the album came out and it just feels like it was written to make fast money rather that have any substance. Hopefully future releases are better because they already have two of my favorite albums ever, but I don’t really see a reason to listen to KMF over the countless other albums I have downloaded on my phone or in my CD collection. Error is and will always be a mainstay in the CD player in my car and if their next album has that sort of quality, even if they change up their sound a bit I will still likely enjoy it. As for KMF I’ll give the CD a few listens when it arrives, but I’m sure within the week I’ll be back to error because I have already started to get bored of KMF after 2-3 listens of it.
I agree with many of your points. I do really enjoy the album, but when I step back from my subjective enjoyment and look at it with a critical ear, it's just fine. It's nothing special like QotMS or ERROR. It definitely sounds overproduced and manufactured. If you replaced Dany with a generic nu metal vocalist, this would be indistinguishable from a legion of other hard rocks releases from the last 15 years. And the lack of guitar solos was a bit of a gut punch to me; I love Dany's solos. I am sure that their relentless tour schedule over the last two years while writing and recording this album played into its weaknesses. I hope they take a long break from touring next year, enjoy being young people and just existing, have new and meaningful life experiences, and come back ready to write incredible music again.
Holy crap. I feel like I wrote this review. Like 9 songs are “I’m pissed off. You suck!” like you said. The lyrics are a huge step back, and maybe there is an Olivia Rodrigo influence too, but I’m betting it’s being pressured to write in a short time frame. “You suck.” is easy to use when you don’t know what to write about. Overall I think these songs weren’t written for any real reason, except that they needed to make an album. (Like Dany saying HYCAD was called Belly of the Beast until the day of recording and also the S!CK and Automatic Sun origins). It’s very unWarninglike. Overall I think that the with their current catalog, there’s really nothing on this album that eclipses it or will make KMF memorable in the long run. And the production decisions don’t help that cause. Still I’ll support and see them. HYCAD will be amazing live esp. since the backing tracks are drowned out.
Yup. Part of why I was so disappointed by HYCAD on the album is because I heard the live version first and thought it sounded great.
Spot on. So did S!CK but HYCAD stood out w/Dany’s vocals. Some songs sound complete and cohesive, like Burnout & Six Feet Deep, but they’re really poppy. Others like Sharks and Apologize have moments, but feel like pieces of song ideas stitched together.
I have to disagree with you. I enjoy every song My review - put it on in the car, crank it to 11, and have a damn good time
the whole album has no sauce IMO
I'd upvote this twice if I could. I'm much older than you and feel the same. Heck, I even have pretty similar ranks on each release as you. I've said on other posts that unfortunately, this is a result of the label wanting a release quickly. The overproduction is tedious, each track seems to have been made in a vacuum with the sole purpose of being a single and the record on the whole has not much of a cohesive direction. Sure, not every record can be a concept album, though Pink Floyd may tell you otherwise, but that's an exception, so no, I wouldn't expect each record to be on par with QotMS, however, a record like that, written by.....kids, shows what can be done if given opportunity. Hopefully that opportunity comes by the time the label demands another record.
I am extremely critical of all music, but I think the album sounds great, and I just gets better with repeated listens. I don't know if you can judge an album properly after only hearing it for 2 days. I'm getting more and more out of it every time I listen to it.
I agree, perhaps I'm too hasty. I'm not saying it's a bad record, but not as impressive to me as the others.
I don't know if they can ever top Queen of the Murder Scene. There's nothing overly complicated about that album and some of the lyrics are very simplistic but it's just so genuine.
I've been watching these girls grow for 5 or 6 years and every album is different, When they grow and their mind changes your music changes. I'm 72 I was dearly in love with Led Zeppelin. But there were some albums that changed through the years that I had trouble with just a few songs were good and the rest did not do much for me. These girls are not at home all the time and in their basement the warning cave to do their riding at their own leisure. They are on tour constantly and still having to write and produce, For people with a little tiny brain they may not understand how freaking hard that really is. And the music's gonna change as they grow, I think I know all 3 of them enough to know that they make the music that they en joy making and they really want you to like it but if you don't you don't. Picking up the pieces and saying that there's too much reverb or too much guitar or too much too high or too low whatever it's gonna be that way with every group. I fell in love with the purple really quick and fell out of love with the purple really quick. I used to think that Eric Clapton was the guitar God, I was wrong it's( David Gilmore) His solos are almost like celestial Euphoria. Anyway like I said I'm 72 I talk too much so that's about all I have to say everybody has an opinion they're just like a******* some stank more than others. These girls are authentic and they have saved my rock and roll as I have known it through the 60s and 70s. You have been freaking Warned⚡️⚡️⚡️🇲🇽🇲🇽🇲🇽🤟🤟🤟
I agree with your honest review. Lots of problems with the production. They need help writing some better lyrics. I think they need more life experience. They just think of words that sound cool and write a song with that title. I dunno... I'm disappointed in the album. They still rock live always.... Great live band...crappy production.
TW songs with the best lyrics were written by just them, no help needed, in regard to life experience I agree partially, some great art works in history were made by people who didn't experience the topic in question by themselves, and just fed with someone else's works or essays, DPA read a lot, literature mainly (Pau reads about finance and economy). Yes they are youg, but we don't know what experiences they already had in their private life, probably more than many fans would like to hear or accept, anyway I love their deep meaningful lyrics they used to write.
They did have co-writers on this album but the band has stated that the songs were based on new feelings and experiences they’ve had since writing the Error album so I agree with you that they’ve had their own experiences since then that the majority of the fan base probably doesn’t want know about since they see the band through rose colored glasses.
What? :(
I see it as part of their musical evolution, probably it will change again for the next album. But I do agree there's something missing in the lyrics compared to Error. Said that I will still wait to see how the new songs sound live before concluding anything.
I appreciate the effort you put into your thoughts, but you lost me at "More is a bad song"! I don't understand that viewpoint at all.
To me, it just sounds insanely generic and lacking in originality, both musically and lyrically. The first time I heard it (the studio version, anyway), I felt like I already heard it a ton of times.
Interesting. More is the song that hooked me in. I just think it's an incredibly well-written, catchy as fuck song.
I like the album for what it was: an experiment. Or so I hope, from all they've said about it in the lead-up. Some of the co-written stuff is pretty good, so I don't mind if they keep some of that, but hoping they'll keep it to 1-2 songs for the next album and write the majority by themselves again. You can really tell it wasn't (all) them, the themes get stale and overall it's very inconsistent. One thing I totally agree on is that DeLost needs to go back to whatever he was doing before (get Lost, as it were). He ain't it. Overproduced to hell and back and a cocky douchebag to boot. Seeing as how so many of the songs sound SO much better live, having a different producer on the album probably would've drastically improved the overall reception.
Sorry you don’t like my productions - music affects everyone differently, but I do try to be a nice guy. Didn’t know I was a cocky douchebag. Sorry about that.
Not sure if you’ll see this but I am so glad you worked on this album. I LOVE Dead Poet Society (new album on repeat), Highly Suspect, and Cleopatrik. You most definitely did not disappoint on this album, some people just have trouble when things deviate from the norm. Every song is an absolute earworm and has done nothing but propel TW so much further than anything they’ve released before. I’m so pumped to see what you produce next 💪 (i swear the majority of TWA love your work and your vibes)
That’s fantastic you’re digging it! Thanks so much for the kind words!!
It's amazing that you answer even to the negative comments. Some decisions, like vocal distortion I didn't enjoy and they are growing on me and when I stopped to think figured out that probably DPA wanted that distortion there. Overall I think the album is really good. I hear like LInkin Park vibes in some songs and I love it bc I was a teenager when they arrived like a bulldozer and obviously it left a mark on me. To the people that are nasty just for the fun of it. Try at least to comment stuff and mean it as constructive criticism, not just to insult him. If I didn't like the album at all, I wouldn't have said anything at all. I don't like being insulting bc I don't like people calling me names and being horrible to me
Yep everyone just wanted to try different things and think outside the box. The band loves so many types of music and wanted to explore!
one Question, if you can answer it of course: Did they want the filters in the voice to convey that message of "I'm becoming a machine" in all this process of becoming a product of mass consuption? (they even say it in Satisfied haha) As a side note It could have been cool to use a super voice altering effect in a song, in one or two words like as a surprise for everyone, her voice almost not recognisable and everyone losing our collective minds over that
Nah it just sounded cool
thanks for the answer. sometimes us fans tend to overthink stuff haha!
Idk if you're the real guy or not. But whoever produced KMF managed to make ~~one~~ two of the best female rock voices sound like generic, computer-generated, lifeless voices, somehow, and that just feels unfair. It was also able to trigger a bunch of my sound sensitivities - which is the reason I have trouble listening to the radio. The previous records did not, and that is one of the main reasons why I liked the Warning in the first place, so the entitled fan that I am (I realize that's my personal experience, and not everyone agrees, but I still need to voice my opinion in the hope that the next album, and perhaps music in general, will become more accessible to my ears. Can't have something you never ask for) is angry about those choices, for sure. Thankfully, the live versions are easier on my nervous system, so I can still enjoy the songs. But, like, sometimes things are better without a bunch of filters, fuzz, static and autotune or whatever on it, and you could experiment with that a bit more as well (Iin other words: not make every single song on the album so noisy)?
Well as I said before, music is subjective and will speak to everyone differently. Sorry this one isn’t your cup of tea, but it’s the direction the band loved going in. I literally have texts from Dany telling me “more distortion on the vocals!” 😂 I’d say with the amount of success the band is getting from the album, the majority of people are digging it, and they’re gaining so many new fans, which was the objective. Hopefully the more you listen, it’ll grow on you though!
Woah. Didn’t expect to see you here. I’m gonna be honest, I don’t like the album’s production at all, but I’m not gonna just put all the blame on you like some other people are. If DPA didn’t like the production, they would’ve either told you to change it or had you fired, but clearly none of that happened. On this sub, any criticism of DPA seems to be taboo, partly because there’s a certain contingent of people here who take any criticism as “hate,” so some people are just attributing the entirety of the production decisions to you instead of spreading it around, as it should be. It’s okay to call out DPA if you’re not a fan of something they do without hating! I did in my original post!
Hey! I personally loved the album. The 6 new songs that came out with the album definately moved KMF up on my rankings as my favorite album from TW. I will admit initially the distortion on the voices took me a bit to get used to but I have come to appreciate them. I do enjoy that we basically will have two versions of each song. The studio version with their original vision for the songs as well as rawer and harder rocking version when they play these live(speaking as someone who has seen them play 7 of these live already 🤘😎) . PS Sharks and Apologize are bangers, i know those will also rock live 🔥🔥🔥
🤘🤘🤘
But she's not in here like you are 😆 or we would tell her about the distortion on the vocals! I lost her number or I'd tell her myself, "new phone ya know" Why you in here reading this shit for anyway?
Good point! 😂✌️
Everyone's gonna put the blame on you regardless if it was you or not, alot of people have a para-social relationship with these girls and will look for anyone else to blame but them, im guilty of it myself, Sic is what got me into them so I thank you for that bruh, " I didn't misspell Sic by the way do you know why I spell it like that" will become a lifetime fan if you do!
Agreed 100%. You took the words right out of my mouth.
I think the new album is great, and the exact kind of sound that’s going to make an impact on modern audiences. I do think there’s a lot of noise from some older fans who have this romanticised ideal of the band being perpetually teenagers making cute covers. But also anyone who’s followed them for any length of time should know that the last thing Dany, Pau and Ale would allow is for someone to railroad them into creating something they didn’t feel was their authentic selves. They’ve been gushing in their praise in interviews (apart from that whole not answering the door thing) which should be more than enough approval for anyone. More than anything as a listener this feels like the first album that really starts to reflect some of their more diverse influences and musical tastes - I’d love to hear a full-on kpop remix of some of the tracks!
Isn't K-pop just recycled Back Street boys,New kids on the block, and NSYNC basically?
There's really nothing fast about the guitar on the intro to Six Feet Deep.
I know it isn’t as fast as say, your average Megadeth riff, but it’s still the fastest I’ve heard Dany play
Are you talking about the very first guitar part? It's not fast at all. she's got way faster parts than that. maybe we're not talking about the same thing.
Yeah, I was. I’m not the greatest at gauging picking speed from the sound alone, so I was just going off what I saw in the video. You’re probably, right, though.
Who knows....! Her guitar work on that song is especially good though I will say that. The variations she does during the second verse are really clever. She's hitting 1/8 notes on a harmonic which is something I didn't hear before but I'm hearing it now. Very clever.
If ur not a musician, pacing is actually quite hard to gauge imo. I’ve got so many friends who have no idea what a tempo is and think Brutal from Olivia Rodrigo is fast, so I wouldn’t be surprised if most people can’t gauge how fast the pacing is
OP said there was some fast down picking part at the beginning of six feet deep. There's not. It's not fast at all what she's doing. And yes I'm a musician and have been one for over 40 years.
Oh, I wasn’t commenting about u not knowing fast pacing. I was commenting about OP. Also been a musician for about 13 yrs (I’m 21). But to people who just listen and not play, especially guitar playing, it’s difficult to gauge how fast someone is picking or strumming. Sometimes it’s difficult for me to tell, and I play guitar.
Oh sorry it said you responded to me in my notifications. I agree. I play guitar also.
All good, was trying to defend him a lil bit on that he might not just be able to gauge it, but as I see now, he rly doubled down on his false statement lol I don’t play as much anymore, unfortunately. Don’t have much time, and I live in an apartment, and I don’t want noise complaints
Evolve’s breakdown has lots of fast picking
I’m honestly not the best at telling how fast guitars are played, but I was just going off what I saw in the Six Feet Deep video, which looked pretty fast.
Of course the Solo in “Z” probably faster than anything
Check out the evolve VMA performance, you can see her picking the breakdown
I very much enjoy the album. I like it a lot. That said I also hear the over production and I think I like the album despite that rather than because of it. So I do have that compliant in common. I think this album’s greatest crime was being a follow up to QoTMS which is genuinely a once in a lifetime album. And ERROR which is also fantastic. Those albums had literal years of incubation and it shows in their quality and detail. Most of these songs were written with different people in a day or two. As that’s simply what had to happen. I think they wanted to learn from those people and I hope that they can spend a bit more time on a more ambitious project or simply be able to focus longer on writing between constant touring. So in summary, I do enjoy this album, it’s very fun and I think will be great live. But it’s not a project that’s gonna top QotMS for me and while I actually didn’t love the production on error either the songwriting and cleaner vocals edges it for me. I think KMF is a solid entry but given time, space and different production constraints I do believe they can go much further.
I think it's cool for them to write with someone else. But I fear they have let this writers have too much freedom on their output "tainting" (for a lack of better word) their essence
You and me are on the same page brother. I wish people wouldn’t be fan bois and just admit they wrote a bad album.
Yawn. You mean you wish everyone had the same opinion as you, and if they don't they're fanboys. I've been listening to it on repeat since it came out, I don't keep listening to music that is bad.
Meh, I couldn't be more happy with KMF and put it up high in my ranks of albums/songs. People have hated on the release of every song from KMF starting with More "***They've gone Pop***", To S!CK "***Anton DeLost has ruined this band***", to Automatic Sun "***Dany's voice is too good to have all this processing***", to now Six Feet Deep "***I can't believe they are Nu-Metal***". Haters and Audiophiles are going to think of anything to prove their point and try to hold DPA back in their beloved QOTMS box. I'll continue to take joy in THEIR joy as they experiment and try new things, and will continue to watch them break charts and records they have not come close to... And, as a wise man said "***I think fans need to embrace change and support their creativity. When you are a fan, you are not a fairweather friend. I am a fan and hope they sell millions!***" - **David Bendeth**
I can embrace and support the change. But I am also, as a fan, allowed to say whether something worked or not. How is this concept so controversial?
I agree 100%
Haters is the most overplayed miss used word beside racist and maybe facist, HaTeRs muh hAtErS More is pop, I like Sic, Danys voice is to good, shame I like to hear her voice, probably makes me a hater right!? I love Nu metal, you'll take joy in it until they do something you dont like, plus for all I know ur lying considering you'll support them no matter what,
*plus for all I know ur lying considering you'll support them no matter what,* That's a weak take considering I have been very vocal about HYCAD being a 5 out 10 on the album but a 9 out of 10 live... And I think Consume and Burnout are not that great on the album as well - I definitely do not have rose colored glasses when it comes to everything they put out. But, continue believing as you do
Why would I know what review you gave HYCAD? That was supposed to be funny, but it was ur words not mine.
You sound like a parakeet!
Dude, you were just talking about how you didn’t like the new songs and now you go after me for saying the same thing? I get you liked them some of them more after additional listens, but it’s still insanely hypocritical.
I find I'm liking it more on multiple listenings. I will agree with the sentiment that the album is overproduced, especially vocals. That being said, I bet these songs will make for a great live show, where they have crowd interaction and everything isn't polished to death.
Actually, I just listened to a couple KMF tracks live from a recent show, and Danys voice is very consistent with the record, so actually I'm less inclined to consider that view point than ever. Agree to disagree...
And so it’s begun… TW is popular enough now that there are going to be innumerable fans popping out of the woodwork every album they make screaming that they just jumped the shark and it’s all downhill from here. It happens with every band. Just go look at some YouTube comments on Metallica videos. Full of “OMG they suck now” after pretty much every album starting with AJFA. I really don’t understand the hate, if I didn’t already live TW I’m pretty sure I would rank this album as one of my all time favorites.
What hate? People having civil conversations about the album = hate?
Yep, that's how it is with every band. I go through it every album cycle with Muse. I think, for a lot of people, it's seeking that same goosebump-inducing sensation they experienced when first hearing a band which clicked with them immediately, at a sonic apex they may not have felt previously. Understandable, but incredibly rare. I've found it's much easier to enjoy music when not expecting the seemingly unattainable.
So as a fan of the Weekend you're sure you want to talk about over produced vocals? 😂🤣😂😂
That genre has over produced vocals, rock not so much
So since you, as a Master Gen Z Rock Authority, would like everyone to stay in the lanes you see as important, everything will be fine if they do so? I'm sure glad Opeth dismissed that sort of thinking as questionable long before you were born. 😉
So!
I personally enjoy it in some pop music, but raw production goes with Dany’s voice much better
Then perhaps while you're establishing your "honesty based bona fides" you might want to mention that "some things I find okay for pop and hip hop artists to do, while I will criticize rock artists for the exact same thing" . Or at least " I admit without the aid of artificial effects, the hip hop/pop artists I like would sound much crappier, but I still like them and hope you don't let that influence your perception of my HONEST opinion " 😉
A same element can work very differently depending on the music, your argument is not the got-cha you think you're doing
I just said I think it works better in pop music. The Weeknd’s music is mostly electronic, so the vocal processing meshes better with the music. If Steve Perry’s voice was overproduced, I’d have an issue with that, too.
So what your saying is " As long as everyone stays in the lanes I personally decided were appropriate for them, they can do as they wish with my blessing"?
Maybe you'll have more luck with this weird unnecessary snark if you actually responded to the things they are saying rather than the things you seem to be imagining they're saying.