MAN BITES DOG

Type: Album

Score: 5.5/10

Date modified: Feb 21, 2026

Man… this album is so disappointing to me. Since CHASER dropped and really opened my eyes to what music could sound like I’ve been a really big femtanyl fan, however it’s been hard to not notice how weak her output has been recently. I really loved CHASER and the subsequent singles (especially LOVESICK, CANNIBAL), however I found myself a little let down by REACTOR. I didn’t hate the EP, but it felt like the sound she was going for had begun to shift. It wasn’t bad, the single songs for the EP (especially M3 N MIN3) were all great but the EP and the non-single songs didn’t really flow the same as on CHASER. CHASER had a certain effortlessness about the intensity and chaos but REACTOR felt less controlled which made it a slightly draining listen to me. This made me pretty worried for how MAN BITES DOG, femtanyl’s first album would end up, especially considering it’d be longer than REACTOR and CHASER combined.

As I’m sure you can tell by the score, I was quite disappointed when I heard this album. I’m actually writing this a month after the album released, and in that time I’ve gone back to CHASER more times than I have this album. It’s not that it’s a terrible album, but it doesn’t feel like it’s enough to me. I expected femtanyl’s first album to be the most femtanyl thing of all time but it feels more to me like an album made by someone pretending to be femtanyl. The same energy just isn’t there, it isn’t draining to listen to, it’s boring and that’s just about the worst thing and album like this could be. My thoughts seem to be in contrast to a lot of the reviews I’ve read from proper outlets that seem to feel like it’s too much and I sincerely hope femtanyl doesn’t listen to them (and listens to me instead). I want to feel like I’m being gunned down in a grimy alleyway by this album and then wake up three weeks later in a cold sweat and this just isn’t enough to do that. There are whole stretches of songs that just felt like filler and didn’t interest me at all, it’s still loud but much of the energy seems lost, as if it’s just going through the motions. That said, there is still some good stuff on here, namely SHOWS YOU THE WAY TO THE HIWAY. This song stands out because it feels less like it’s an album made by someone wearing a femtanyl skin suit and more like something made by someone trying something new and enjoying themselves. It has by far the best instrumental on this album and despite having some of the least incomprehensible yelling of any femtanyl song still manages to keep a fun energy with some pretty catch vocals. In my opinion it feels now that femtanyl has pushed this sound she’s being experimenting with for years at this point just as far as she can or wants to. This album definitely feels like a sign that it’s time to try something new with the next project and I really hope she’ll just continue to get better. I’m fully convinced that her second album will be better than her first.