THE WARNING 'Everything’s Falling'

THE WARNING
Everything’s Falling
Lava/Republic Records

Dizzying heights!
Crashing lows!
And putting the dental floss dance craze on notice!

Not since Andalusian one-hit wonders LOS DEL RIO, a.k.a. the purveyors of the “Macarena”, has an active band been so intrinsically tied to a dance move as Monterrey, Mexico-based rock sister-trio THE WARNING. Indeed, following the release of their lead-off single “Kerosene” and its accompanying video back in the early summer had inspired much stylish yet street savvy dance moves, not since, well, ever, up until about a few days ago, has an all-female Mexican rock band even made it to the top of the US Mainstream Rock Airplay chart as this same trio, comprised of Daniela “Dany” (guitar, lead vocals, piano), Paulina “Pau” (drums, vocals, piano),and Alejandra “Ale” Villarreal (bass, piano, backing vocals).

And all without resorting to Euro club remixes or covers by Alvin & The Chipmunks!

With their fifth studio album titled 'Everything’s Falling', THE WARNING are poised for even greater global domination by releasing an album all about the expectations of failure. Kafkaesque as the notion sounds, especially from a band that’s already at its greatest moment of fame, it is still an album that resonates amongst the average person always striving for improvement. The rallying call of “Do better, be better” that you frequently hear each time a popular media figure shows their proverbial ass in public? That’s the same average person everywhere, every day, making a simple mistake somewhere, and with that same person already feeling embarrassed that the mistake happened at all from their own doing, modern society is also waiting to watch and point and overall make the experience even worse, almost encouraging failure overall. Perhaps that’s how the opening number “Ritual” was inspired as Daniela deadpans “I just see death in what is beautiful” in the song’s chorus, highlighting the human condition of social withdrawal following a period of personal grief – yet it also highlights the other part of the human condition of envy and wanting to disassociate oneself from the overall and ritualistic turmoil associated with it. The punk-sounding “Perfect Daughter” is a more raw-sounding affair as it fights back against conventional norms and expectations of womanhood, whereas the title track also further highlights the pattern of not just isolation but in hiding the problem beneath too well, as was outlined in “Ritual”, to the point that the problem overall has been conditioned to be normal.

And what happens if that particular condition is far beyond acknowledgement or understanding, let alone even saving someone from? The answer lies in a song like “Kill Or Be Killed”, a Jekyll and Hyde-themed number where cruelty has long since overtaken empathy and becomes not only part of a human condition, but the sole human condition anymore. “I can be the worst kind of person/I kinda like that version/Keep it up ‘til the curtains close/Better tread carefully/This is what you made of me” alone reads like Walter White’s complete transformation into Heisenberg, where one’s fractious past life has now become an entirely new persona altogether that exists solely on survival through conquest and power at others’ expense. “Ego” also further reflects how the protagonist has now ceased to care any further about personal opinion, and, being the only song on the album written in Spanish, it’s also a thinly-veiled yet personable response at THE WARNING’s past critics in which those same critiques are now weaponized against their own detractors and landing harder than a 747 on a bumpy airstrip while avoiding any unnecessary boasting, hence the song title. And one would think that “Ego”, in spite of its slow-paced and intentionally flat-sounding dismissive tone, would make for the perfect closing number on Everything’s Falling after the album itself having logistically eviscerated the common human condition and everything that we thought we’ve known about it and even ourselves down to its core, but that honor goes to the aforementioned single “Kerosene”. Yes, it’s the album’s money shot, but it’s also the album’s own white whale, tucked firmly at the end of side two and requiring the full undivided attention of pursuing the entire album and its lyrically uncomfortable truths to reach it. Given that the song is a battle cry for projecting the hostility one is carrying and reflects on Everything’s mission statement about misleading appearances, it also marks as the perfect closing song on this album to weed out the false from the true. 

Fiery, feisty and yet proudly unbalanced, THE WARNING have dropped a truth bomb on everything we thought we knew about ourselves and how we think we’re successfully hiding a dark side of us from the rest of the world in the form of 'Everything’s Falling'. Yet, it’s also an album that we essentially deserve almost as much as we need in these times with no dancing around the fact either. In any case, you should trust three sisters with real rock ‘n roll clout any day over two old guys in s suit.

4.5 Out Of 5.0

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