Spotlight: Everyone is Talking About The Warning
EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT THE WARNING — and rightfully so. Daniela (Dany), Paulina (Pau), and Alejandra (Ale) Villarreal Vélez are three sisters originally from Monterrey, Mexico, and they’ve spent the past decade building their name in rock. In 2014, they posted a cover of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” on YouTube. They were only 14, 12 and nine years old at the time. In 2021, they were featured on The Metallica Blacklist in collaboration with Alessia Cara, covering the same song. The band has also opened for Foo Fighters, toured with Halestorm and are now preparing for a world tour supporting Evanescence.
The Warning release their fourth album, Keep Me Fed, today. The first track, “Six Feet Deep,” opens the album with a fierce electric instrumental. While their previous album, ERROR, made space for a softer side of the band with songs like “REVENANT” and “Breathe,” each song on Keep Me Fed is high energy and lyrically strong.
On the atmosphere of the album, Dany shares, “I feel like this is what we needed, not strategically but personally. Going full power and expressing everything that we needed to get out was an important part of this album’s process. We were aching to write stuff exploring the limits of the heaviness for our live shows, so we did just that.”
On “Six Feet Deep,” Dany has a nonchalant quality to her voice, unrushed and controlled, while singing about ego, endings, karma, and power: “What are you going to say when you’re choking on my name? / ’Cuz it’s over / Six feet deep, I’ll be seeing you underground.” With its cool and collected start to the album — yet instrumentally loud and booming — the track demonstrates the confidence that is characteristic of The Warning.
The second track, “S!CK,” is perhaps the catchiest song on the album. It alternates between a groovy chorus led by Dany’s poised vocals and high-tempo verses by Pau’s drumming. The accompanying music video, shot on iPhone, is directed by Iván Chavéz.
“Apologize” follows with an explosion that showcases elements of metal; Dany screams — or, rather, demands — the title. It’s one of the defining tracks that makes up the fearless sound of Keep Me Fed. “Apologize” is reminiscent of “EVOLVE” off ERROR. During the breakdown of the song, Pau’s scream turned heads at their 2023 MTV Video Music Awards performance.
I ask them about their more recent experimentation across genres and what they’ve learned since their first album. “In a space of creation where there are no rules, not experimenting would be a shame,” Dany says. “We love this about the rock genre, and we are grateful that it lets us experiment and write out our emotions and situations exactly how we feel they should be, whether it be super heavy or more groovy.”
More on what’s changed since their debut, Ale adds, “Our creative process has definitely changed a lot since we started writing. We’ve not only grown as musicians but as people. For Keep Me Fed, we explored writing with different people and this was very new to us since [previously] it was always just the three of us. It was an incredible experience to work with so many incredible songwriters and to share all these different experiences and put them all together into a song.”
The Warning have previously released only two songs in Spanish. On Keep Me Fed, they add another to their catalog with “Qué Más Quieres.” The music video takes the band through a female-led heist in the face of cunning men. The metaphor of the video relays the message of the song: empowerment in spaces you are made to feel less, and thriving through it. The video is co-directed by Pau and Chavéz.
“We are very hands-on with everything related to the visual aspect of our music, especially Pau,” Dany shares. “[Pau] loves making Pinterest boards of the visual concept she has in mind for every song when we’re writing. It was amazing watching her work on set and seeing all her ideas come to life.”
In the video, there is a theme between beauty and violence signified by a blue rose. The significance of the blue rose also connects to the recurring theme in The Warning’s music of independence and owning your power — this is now part of the DNA of The Warning.
“Of course, we find [these themes] very important and worth looking for,” Dany says. “More than anything, what we look for in our music and our project is honesty. [We aim for] the confidence to make authentic music that speaks to us and honesty to ourselves about how we feel and how we live through this journey together.”
Released as a single in May, the fifth track, “MORE,” already has over 8M streams on Spotify. A funky bass starts the song until a guitar-led chorus, which then makes an effortless return to a cooler bass-led verse. This oscillation is present throughout the album and the give and take creates an alluring element of suspense.
“Escapism” presents an emotional quality which, lyrically, discusses personal struggles, “I close my eyes then it all fades / I’m still aching, waking, trying again / But I’ll just close my eyes ‘till it all fades.” But it’s achieved in an empowering, booming way, especially sonically.
Photography Credit: Danielle Ernst
“I think we’re unconsciously always writing with this balance between what we say and the sounds that accompany those thoughts in mind,” Pau says of balancing the relationship between lyrics and sound. “It is not until that balance is interrupted by one side or the other that we jump in to make the necessary changes.”
Dany’s vocals are dynamic throughout Keep Me Fed but they especially drive “Satisfied” with a persuasive desperation in her voice that flows high, low, up, and down. She has equally impressive control on the next track, “Burnout,” which was released as a single in May. It stands out lyrically with strong images such as, “The smoke around you splits us in two, you’re just a burnout.” Through this, the conflict is described as literally emanating off the other person in the relationship, making it visceral and unavoidable.
“‘Burnout’ was the one song with the smoothest songwriting process,” Pau says. “[It’s like] the song was anxious to be made. We were with our producer Anton Delost in the room and with Sam Hollander connected through Zoom. The six of us are so different and yet together, we wrote this song. We love that about music — it’s unifying.”
“Sharks” is the track in which The Warning’s intelligent incorporation of imagery and metaphor shines most on Keep Me Fed. They use the animal to present themes of expectation and courage: “Watch me drown / Ripped to shreds under the light / Sharks come circling / Don’t say anything / Wait for their teeth to bite you / Shut your mouth / You know they’re bleeding you out.”
Pau explains that the song evolved from “the main riff, which is what was written first [and] sounded like sharks.”
Throughout the song, the guitar is low and menacing, matching Ale’s escalating bass that intelligently lurks under the verses but actually leads the entire song.
The final three songs are “Hell You Call A Dream,” “Consume,” and “Automatic Sun.” Deceivingly, “Consume” starts at a low tempo with an uncomplicated drum beat, until a guitar eruption and Dany’s line, “You greedy little fucker / you sink your teeth in and baby I’ll look for another.” It’s also the track that mentions the album title.
With the last three songs, Keep Me Fed proves that it refuses to steady. Dany, Pau, and Ale play with impressive fervor until the final second.
The Warning will be kicking off the European leg of their Keep Me Fed world tour on July 5 in France, then will be playing throughout North America from August to October.
“Honestly we’re so excited for all the places we’re going to visit,” Ale says, “but we are extremely excited to play this new album live and to feel the energy of the amazing crowds in all these different places.
“We’ve worked so hard on this new music and we can’t wait for everyone to hear it,” she adds. “We hope everyone enjoys this new era of our music.”
