Unitron
Naïve is the fifth studio album from industrial metal/rock band KMFDM.
After having shown metal influences since the start of their career, KMFDM made the leap into straight-up industrial metal with their fourth album UAIOE. Naïve continues the band's general sound, although there are some noticeable differences in sound while not straying away from their general sound.
Despite still sounding like KMFDM, Naïve is kind of an oddity in this point in time of KMFDM's discography, as it feels less like a continuation of UAIOE and more like a more metal-version of What Do You Know, Deutschland? or Don't Blow Your Top. Therfore, this one is a lot more dance-y with few of the crushing raw thrash segments of the previous album. With that said, there is "Go to Hell" which is a killer industrial thrash track that is probably my favorite on the album. Just try not to bang your head to the grinding riff seguing into giving the listener a brutal thrashing while chanting along to "I want to go to hell!". Not to mention the short but killer guitar solo, and the rest of the solos on the album.
Out of the more dance-y songs, nothing on the album beats the funky industrial banger that is "Friede". This song easily rivals Rammstein in the way of infectiously catchy industrial music, and this song benefits from having little guitar. "Die Now, Live Later" has a pretty good beat, as well as vocals from Christine Siewert, who also gives a great vocal performance on "Piggybank".
While the album isn't as good as UAIOE or What Do You Know, Deutschland?, Naïve is still a pretty good album. It sounds like a band not knowing which direction they wanted to go in, if they wanted to continue with the heavier direction or not. There are some killer songs, but they would really find out where they were going with the next album.
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