Kim Petras, Feed The Beast | Album Review 💿

Although it has some great moments, Kim Petras’ debut album, Feed The Beast is enjoyable but not consistently ‘beastly’ as its title suggests.

Finding that breakthrough moment can change the course of a career.  For pop artist 🎙 Kim Petras, her breakthrough moment came alongside 🎙 Sam Smith.  It is safe to say that 🎵 “Unholy” was a big, BIG deal.  The no. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hit, which is also appears as a bonus cut on her debut album, 💿 Feed The Beast, earned her a historic 🏆 Grammy win as the first out trans artist to win a major category Grammy (🎙 Wendy Carlos, a renowned, trans classical composer, won three Grammys in classical music categories in 1970).  Naturally, the time was right to release her official debut album after several projects including her 2022 sex-positive EP, 💿 Slut Pop.  Ultimately, Feed The Beast has its moments, even if it never reaches the height of that breakthrough moment, or its historic accomplishment.

“Feed The Beast” 

What better way to commence Feed The Beast than in beastly fashion with 🤩 🎵 “Feed The Beast”! Kim Petras is assertive with the sex, serving it up on a platter.  A prime example of the sex positivity: “Oh my, look at your body standing there /… I’ve already decided how it’s going down tonight.” Damn! Furthermore, one has to question the spelling of “coming” given the context.  Produced by 🎛 Ryan OG and Billboard, “Feed The Beast” sets the bold, unapologetic tone of the LP.

Kim Petras got a big lift ahead of the release of Feed The Beast with  🤩 🎵 “Alone,” a collaboration with the one and only 🎙 Nicki Minaj.  This is a crowd-pleasing bop by all means.  Like “Feed The Beast” that precedes, Kim is sexually charged up and ready to go.  In the chorus, she sings, “I’ve been trying to give it to you all night / What’s it gonna take to get you alone?” The lust continues in the first verse, where Petras mentions her appetite and states “I could ride it, ride it, ride it, ride it all night.” Giddy up! As to be expected, Barbie – aka Nicki Minaj – complements Kim well. She’s confident AF and violent (“We throw jabs, bitch’ll get dragged”). Further fueled by the 🎛 Rocco Did It Again! / Dr. Luke production, “Alone” continues a strong start for Kim P.

🎵 “King of Hearts” keeps Feed The Beast aggressive mode.  The beat goes hard, while the synths are colorful, courtesy of 🎛 Cirkut and Heavy Mellow.  The best moment of “King of Hearts” is the tuneful chorus, particularly when Kim sings those high notes.  What is interestingly thematically is the shift from “Feed The Beast” and “Alone.” After pursuing the guy hard, she backs off because she’s knows he’s no good (“One day, you gon’ wake up and you got no one, had your fun).

“Thousand Pieces” 

Heartbreak is the modus operandi on 🎵 “Thousand Pieces,” where Petras asserts, “Everything can break in two / But a heart can break into a thousand pieces.” True. Essentially, on this mid-tempo ballad, Kim longed for him, yet, she missed the signs – those red flags. “We used to be kissing but now I scream at night,” she sings in the first verse, adding, “Tryna put back the pieces, just barely alive.” A kinder gentler moment on Feed The Beast, “Thousand Pieces” features smooth production by Dr. Luke and 🎛 Fat Max Gsus. If there was a fear Kim was going soft, she amps things up on  🎵 “uhoh.” On “uhoh,” Petras is that bish – the sugar honey iced tea! “Everything I drop is a banger,” she brags in the chorus. WOO!  Later, she informs us of her fucking intentions (“I just wanna fuck up the place”). Fierce as fuck, “uhoh” doesn’t move the needle per se – she says nothing brand-new or meaningful – but you can’t knock the confidence.  Furthermore, shout out the 🎛 Ian Kirkpatrick production.

“When you touch my body, I hear the angels sing.” Jesus! The groove keeps on grooving on the rhythmic 🎵 “Revelations.”  Once more, the production is slick and synth-tastic.  The tempo cooks, and Kim Petras exudes no shortage of personality.  Kim doesn’t want to talk, mind you – she wants to… Also, salvation isn’t her cup of tea either, supposedly: “I’m not looking for salvation / You make me believe in heaven.” So, her idea of heaven is sex? That’s on brand for her 🤣!

“BAIT”

“If you want my love, baby, say it to my face / If you want me hard, you can pull up by my place.” Ooh-wee! Back in 2016, 🎙 BANKS informed us that she 🎵 “Fuck with Myself” – quite the fucking statement.  She, Serpentina, appears with Petras on 🤩 🎵 “BAIT,” another high-octane, naughty gem. Early on, BANKS is trying to “Make you [him] bite the bait.” As for Kim, she informs him, “I got the venom to take you to heaven.” Producers 🎛 Jasper Harris, Ojivolta, and Twisco help make “BAIT” one of the more alluring joints from Feed The Beast.

The 🎵 “Sex Talk” follows, finding Petras serving up playful spoken word vocals in the chorus. As always, she is risqué, at least to an extent: “Something big to measure, make me feel the pressure.”  Consistent with the LP, the backdrop is impressive – quite exuberant in this case.  No new ground is broken but it’s worth listening too. 🎵 “Hit It From The Back” is on the same wavelength – S meets E and then they X.  Petras makes it known she likes it rough (“Don’t be too easy when I want it hard”).  The groove remains king 👑, as it has consistently on Feed The Beast.  The chorus is simple – nothing deep –  but catchy.

“Claws”

“Even though you don’t want me / I know I’ll never be free…” Hmm, okay, Kim! On 🎵 “Claws” another dance floor ready, minor key cut, Petras is surprisingly less sexual compared to some cuts on Feed The Beast.  For comparison, it’s much tamer than anything that graced 💿 Slut Pop.  Essentially, Petras is ‘down to earth’ here – tame – which makes “Claws” feel less brand-new and less forward thinking. It does benefit from another catchy chorus.

🎵 “Minute” follows, featuring an ear-catching, chilly instrumental.  Similar to “Claws,” “Minute” is less sexual compared to other records. “Kiss me like the world is coming down,” Petras sings in the chorus, continuing, “It’s about to be a lonely night / So hold me tight for one more minute.”  While subtlety seems to be the opposite of how many view Petras, simultaneously, it shows her ability to conform 🤷🏾‍♂️. The chorus is the section to beat – something that is the case throughout Feed The Beast.

“My coconuts / You can put ‘em in your mouth…” Whoa, whoa! It doesn’t take long to understand that Kim Petras is referring to anatomical coconuts 🥥 aka breasts on 🤩 🎵 “Coconuts”.  “Coconuts” arrived well in advance of Feed The Beast, materializing in December of 2021. Petras is being N-A-U-G-H-T-Y AF as the audience is expected to “Watch ‘em bounce up and down.” The sexual innuendo is ripe AF on “Coconuts.” Following two safer cuts, coconuts are just what the doctor ordered! In the first verse, she sings, “Look up, hot air balloons / All good things come in twos,” adding at the end of the verse, “Everybody love the twins.”  My, my, my.  She also mentions literal twins in the pre-chorus (Mary-Kate and Ashley), while continuing to talk about her breasts.  Later, in the second pre-chorus, she titillates, going so far to name them: Cartier and Tiffany. She also references “the double Ds.” Kim gets even dirtier in the post-chorus with the milky “Cocolicious / Drippin’ down your face / So delicious” lyrics. Like her 2022 EP 💿 Slut Pop, sex positivity is at the top of her list on 🎵 “Coconuts”.  It’s a bit campy and corny, mind you, but entertaining. The sound of the record is infectious – shout out the star-studded production team 💪: 🎛 Rocco Did It Again!, Ryan OG, Vaughn Oliver, Housefly, Aaron Joseph, and Dr. Luke.  

Appears in 🔻:  

• Kim Petras, “Coconuts”: Midnight Heat 🕛 🔥 52 (2023)

“Castle In The Sky”

Post- 🎵 “Coconuts”, 🎵 “Castle In The Sky” gives Kim another pleasant, respectable joint. An up-tempo dance cut, impressive production work continues to be the M.O. of Feed The Beast.  “Castle” marks another less risqué moment for a star not known for holding back.  Still, it’s fun enough, and the pre-chorus expresses a high: “There’s too many drugs, too little time / Let’s do it, let’s do it/ I don’t wanna go to sleep tonight / I wanna get ruined.” Sky-high, baby! 🤩 🎵 “brrr” is an ice cold penultimate track – in the best way possible.  Again, the production is sick – great beat and synths.  Petras’ vocals sound especially potent, a great tone.  The big takeaway is that “brrr” is one of the more fun moments. The centerpiece – the crowning achievement –  the chorus: “You should pull me up closer / Get your rocket outta holster / Why don’t you take it out on me? / If you think you’re so cold, brrr.”

“Mummy don’t know daddy’s getting hot / At the body shop / Doing something unholy.” Gah-day-um! On 🤩 🎵 “Unholy”, a bonus cut which originally appears on 🎙 Sam Smith’s fourth studio album, 💿 Gloria, Petras, joins them, fitting the unholiness perfectly. “Unholy” commences unexpectedly with big a cappella vocals by Smith (with vocal effects), the eventual chorus of the record.  Ultimately, the chorus ends up being a vibe that you can’t get unstuck. Besides the epic intro and alluring chorus, “Unholy” features incredibly sleek production work courtesy of Smith, 🎛 Ilya, Cirkut, Blake Slatkin, Omer Fedi, and Jimmy Napes. Although the chorus does a fabulous job of summing up the sus happenings, the verses by Smith and Petras superbly fill in the blanks.  In the first, Smith sings, “Dirty, dirty boy / you know everyone is talkin’ on the scene / I hear them whisperin’ bout the places that you’ve been / And how you don’t know how to keep your business clean.” As for Petras,  in playful and sassy fashion, she asserts, “You gon’ need to bag it up ‘cause I’m spendin’ on Rodeo (Woo) / You can watch me back it up, I’ll be gone in the A.M.” All told, “Unholy” is short but ultimately sweet. 

Final Thoughts 💭

So, how does Feed The Beast stack up? Is it a beastly, homerun of a debut LP by Kim Petras? Ultimately, it is enjoyable but not the second coming.  There are some bops clearly worth playing on repeat.  There are some edgy moments too, but clearly Feed The Beast isn’t as raunchy or risqué as her 2022 EP, 💿 Slut Pop.  Sure, Slut Pop was a bit much, but, at the same time, I would’ve liked to seen a bit more of the liberated spirit of that project appear on this project.  Feed The Beast, hence, isn’t beastly, but has its moments.

🤩 Gems 💎: “Feed The Beast,” “Alone,” “BAIT,” “Coconuts,” “brrr” & “Unholy”

🎙 Kim Petras • 💿 Feed The Beast • 🏷 Amigo / Republic • 🗓 6.23.23

[📷: Amigo / Republic]