KMFDM - Reception

Reception

As of July 2007, KMFDM had sold approximately two million records worldwide. Critics have been widely positive of KMFDM, though less enthusiastic about the band's earliest work. What Do You Know, Deutschland? was called "less energetic" and Don't Blow Your Top was called "a little flimsy" in comparison to later albums by AllMusic critics Andy Hinds and Vincent Jeffries, respectively. UAIOE, when the band's sound began to develop, was called "more assured" by Hinds and "more representative of KMFDM's true motives" by Thompson, who added that KMFDM's guitar-heavy sound inspired Ministry's own embrace of the instrument after the bands toured together in 1990.

The first major breakthrough in the band's critical reception was 1990's Naïve, called "one of their strongest releases" by Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic, "brilliant" by fellow AllMusic critic Ned Raggett, "superb" by Hinds, and "the most fun 'industrial dance' album ever" by Spin critic Chuck Eddy. The subsequent albums released in the 1990s were described as some of the band's strongest by AllMusic critic Greg Prato, with their metal guitars, industrial beats, and dance floor sensibilities praised by CMJ New Music Monthly critic Heidi MacDonald and Ira Robbins. Michael Saunders of the Boston Globe said of the band: "It's a small field, but KMFDM is tops in it: makers of dense, danceable, post-industrial torrents of noise. The German band specializes in fabricating aural assaults that can be intimidating to the uninitiated." MacDonald said in 1996, "With Ministry gone grindcore, Skinny Puppy just gone, and Nine Inch Nails a brand name, KMFDM is now the standard bearer of industrial", though Erlewine and Hinds felt the band was losing some steam towards the end of the decade.

Greg Rule declared in 1999, after the band's temporary disbandment, that KMFDM had "produced nine high-impact records that have earned them a large, loyal fanbase strewn across the planet." Erlewine called the band "one of Wax Trax's first industrial superstars", "an underground sensation", and "one of the major industrial bands of the '90s." Most of the band's albums released in the 21st century have been well-received, although Prato and ReGen Magazine's Ilker Yücel have commented on the sameness from one album to the next. The most recent albums, Blitz and WTF?!, also praised, have been described as moving back in an electronic, less guitar-focused direction by Trey Spencer of Sputnikmusic and AllMusic's David Jeffries.