That is unless you’re under 30, in which case you might be familiar with them.  A month ago, I wasn’t. That was when I was offered a free ticket to catch this band, The Warning, at The Warsaw, a concert club in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Since I had my own rehearsal that evening I couldn’t accept the generous offer but after rehearsal, I looked up what I’d missed.

I’m more accustomed to discovering new music and contemporary artists coming from across the oceans. I didn’t expect to find it just south of our border in Monterrey, Mexico and not from three very young and talented sisters. Holy Schnikes! Suffice to say, they were the tightest and most powerful rock trio I’d heard since Muse, and these ladies give up nothing to them, especially with their writing. That’s saying something for a band that supposedly “came from nowhere”… ten years ago. That’s right. The Warning began as children when their bass player was just nine years old!

“Evolve” was the first song I heard from The Warning. This video is from the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards. It grabbed me instantly because the intro is in 7/4 and I love odd meters.  Pop songs that venture outside 4/4  need to be really “hooky” to sell to a  pop-centric public programmed for foot tapping on 2 and 4. An example would be “Money” by Pink Floyd. The Warning accomplished that. The song also reveals that they’re pretty good story tellers, lyrically speaking. I love a couple of lines in this song about female empowerment:

I’m not in danger,
I’m the danger now.

As a general notice to a stagnant and largely retro hard rock community, she’s right. You’ve been served, boyos. A line from another one of their songs that sticks in my craw is “wearing tears like jewelry“. Great line, but there are many of them, including the song title “Hell You Call a Dream“. They’ve obviously got no problem composing in a second language. The Warning are, to leverage a cliche, the total package.

I’ve always preferred live to studio recordings. Three of my Top 5 desert island disks are live, all from the old Fillmore East. Watching a band live negates any Milli Vanilli Effect. So many pop artists can’t play live because their music was conceived in the sterile laboratory of a recording studio. There’s no way it can be downsized practically and economically for the road, especially not down to a three-piece unit which is even minimalist for a Long Island wedding band.

The Warning has the usual assortment of slick, over-produced music videos and they’re good if you like that sort of thing. But their live videos are so much better because not only does whoever does their live sound deserve a standing O of his own, they’re also natural stage performers. It’s a rare act where fans gush “If you like the record you should see them live! They’re next level live!” It’s true though. Few acts command a stage like these ladies and I can think of none who do it better. Even iconic bands like Green Day can’t hold a candle to their infectious stage energy. To say they own the stage is a sorry understatement.

Accordingly, this is my favorite video from The Warning: a 108-minute performance at the sold-out Pepsi Center in Mexico City this past summer. I can only find only five minutes of it that I’d consider cutting if I wanted a shorter video.

This level of stage presence can only come from spending years doing it. But Dani, Pau and Ale are only 24, 21 and 19 years old respectively, yet they have a swagger that took even the Rolling Stones several years to develop. That’s because they’ve been touring and performing live since they were 14, 11 and 9. Live playing is definitely their wheelhouse. You’ll find very few videos of The Warning where they’re not performing as a band, even in the traditional music video format. No slo-mo running down the beach or pouting after a breakup text. They leave their drama on the stage.

One performance that demonstrates this is their live remake (not copy) of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”, which Metallica was so impressed with that they included The Warning’s version on their recent Black Album. I’ve heard at least a dozen tributes of this iconic song over the last 30 years but The Warning took it apart, re-engineering it as a half-time ballad, only playing the original’s signature lick in the song’s outro. To be honest, I slightly prefer The Warning’s version. Their skillful use of dynamics is worth praise of it own. It’s orchestrated to suck you into the silence only to slap you in the face, like a good horror movie.

Who are these Ladies Villarreal Vélez? They’re Daniela (“Dani”) on guitar, Paulina (“Pau”) on drums and Alejandra (“Ale”) on bass. They have a colorful history that managed to escape me on Youtube for a decade. I spend more time on Youtube than all other streaming platforms combined so how I missed them is a mystery.

The Warning’s 2014 video of “Enter Sandman” when the girls were mostly pre-teen went viral on Youtube. They found themselves invited to perform on “The Ellen Degeneres Show”, which kickstarted their professional career as an opening act for Foo Fighters, Sammy Hagar and the Circle, and Stone Temple Pilots. They’ve since gone on to open for Metallica, Muse and Guns ‘N Roses. Now they’re headliners and selling out thousand seaters, again managing to stay under my radar until recently.

Not satisfied with being just a copy band, they began writing their own material years ago, including a rock opera album called Queen of the Murder Scene about a disturbed young woman’s psychopathic journey from desire to obsession to murder and madness.This was written and recorded when they were all just in their teens and recorded at a local studio in their hometown of Monterrey.

Bullet point: they turned out to be outstanding pop composers as well. Among my favorites are “Sick”, “Evolve”, “Disciple”, “Automatic Sun”, “More”… hell, there’s far more “wow!” than “meh” in their song list.

So now you’ve heard of them too. Given their tireless international touring schedule, recordings, TV appearances and prolific use of social media you’re going to be hearing lots more from them.

Here’s a compact and curated Youtube playlist of The Warning for your listening consideration.