If you’ve spent any time on the internet in the past few years, odds are you’ve come into contact with Babymetal. After finding their way into the meme-stream with 2014’s zany viral hit Gimme Chocolate, the group was suddenly everywhere: reaction videos, social media, metal magazines and websites, music festivals, and more. But this band wasn’t just a meme: their music was genuinely boundary-pushing, allowing brutal metal to coexist with upbeat and energetic pop sounds with ease. Of course, this immediately drew the ire of “true” metalheads, who insisted that the band’s manufactured idol background and catchy choruses did nothing but bastardize metal and everything it stood for. But with 2016’s Metal Resistance, the band once again proved that they were the real deal, fusing the very best of metal’s vast array of styles with a level of theatrical flair, emotion, performance, and sheer songwriting craft that was impossible to resist. And with this jewel in their crown, the band continued building a huge, dedicated fanbase by playing over a dozen countries around the world over the next two years, and made an unprecedented success out of themselves.
But sadly, no success story goes untarnished. After capping off their Metal Resistance world tour with a pair of massive arena shows in Japan, Babymetal soon met the new year with tragedy. Guitarist Mikio Fujioka, a member of the group’s live band, suffered serious injuries from a fall in late December 2017, and sadly passed away from them on January 5th. Losing a member so tragically took a huge toll on the group, and things were quiet for a while. But there was another reason for their radio silence, too: Yui-metal. She had been absent from those two arena shows in Japan, and fans weren’t told much outside of a brief mention of health issues. And when it came time for the band’s US tour in May, she was still missing in action, instead replaced by a series of seven revolving dancers that varied in formation from show to show. But by now the writing was on the wall, and in October 2018, Yui finally revealed that she was indeed leaving Babymetal. She was simply too ill to perform with such a demanding group, and had hopes to start a career under her own name.
In the face of all this turmoil, Babymetal’s future was uncertain for the first time in their career. With Yui gone, it spurred anxieties of Su-metal or Moa-metal departing as well, or the band ending altogether. At the very least, big changes were coming, and instead of caving to the pressure, Babymetal rose from the ashes in 2019. They got a lock on Yui’s departure by replacing her with a series of three “Avengers”, who are rotating dancers that fill her spot live and bring the group back to its traditional trio. They soon started to debut new material live too, making is abundantly clear that Babymetal was not going anywhere anytime soon, and was ready to broaden its horizons and look towards the future.
All of this brings us to their new album, Metal Galaxy. Just like the name suggests, the band is reaching for the stars and grabbing as many of them as they can. And that’s not just a metaphor: this album is star-studded with guest features, featuring Joakim Broden of Sabaton, Alissa White-Gluz of Arch Enemy, Tim Henson and Scott LePage of Polyphia, Tak Matsumoto of B’z, and Thai rapper F. Hero. This wide ranging cast of characters is necessary for the vision Babymetal is chasing with this album, though: after spending years touring the globe from young ages, both the girls and the band’s producers have plenty of new inspiration to draw on, and they do. That manifests itself in a host of sounds, most immediately in the form of Shanti Shanti Shanti. This song mixes a crunchy guitar stomp with an Indian flavor, layering in sitars and register-jumping Eastern vocal melismas with great success. Elsewhere, Night Night Burn takes djent-inflected guitar riffs and juts them against a dash of Latin rhythms and flamenco lines, all fusing to create a pulse pounding pop-metal song. On Brand New Day, Polyphia’s dazzlingly chill jazz metal effortlessly blends with the song’s unadulterated J-pop vibe, and Elevator Girl is one of the hookiest songs you’ll hear all year. But Oh! Majinai is a song that almost defies categorization, sounding like a bizzaro pirate shanty courtesy of Joakim Broden’s gravelly chants and shouts overlaid on groovy riffs and jaunty accordion leads. The Japanese edition of Metal Galaxy has even more surprises, though: we find Su-metal spitting bars and flashing attitude over a trap-inspired beat on BxMxC, that’s expertly thickened up by fat 8 string guitar lines. And the other Japanese exclusive track, BBAB, is a trip through chiptune and future bass which is loaded with chiming synths, pulsing keys, and a dose of metal to make this one of the most unique odes to video games ever put to tape.
But for all these big jumps in genre and style, there’s plenty of classic-sounding Babymetal to go around too. Distortion pummels along with with exuberant synth lines reminiscent of their first two albums, staccato riffs, and expressive lead guitar lines. It’s also given an extra injection of aggression with Alissa White-Gluz’s harsh screams, fitting so seamlessly into the song that you almost can’t tell its not the original single released last year. Pa Pa Ya!! is a groove metal stomp that features an instantly shout-able chorus and an aggressive rap verse courtesy of Thailand’s F. Hero, and Kagerou takes their unique sound and pares it down into a slick hard rock track that would slot perfectly onto American rock radio (you know, were it not sung in Japanese). Then there’s Starlight, a song that’s packed with drop tuned djent riffs and serves as a heartfelt tribute to fallen guitarist Miko Fujioka. And Arkadia sounds as if it were cut from the same cloth as Road of Resistance and The One, packed with the sky scraping guitar work you can only get from the very best of power metal.
That’s the thing about this album, though. Just about every song here, taken on its own, is an immediate and excellently written earworm that blends genres and cultures without even blinking. But when you zoom out and look at the album as a whole, problems begin to surface. Simply put, these massive genre jumps quickly become dizzying, especially on the album’s first half. From IN THE NAME OF on, the album does settles into a more consistent and cohesive whole, but by then its already run the gamut of dance-pop, jazz metal, pirate shanties, and Eastern music, and its easy to feel fatigued at the halfway mark. Because at its heart, this album is literally taking on the world and trying to incorporate it all into the Babymetal universe. With that in mind, its hard to tell if Metal Galaxy simply suffers from a non-optimal track order, or if cuts need to be made, but things are soon clouded by another matter entirely. That cloud is the album’s production and mixing, which takes the album’s mission statement of “everything AND the kitchen sink” and runs with it. There is simply no sonic real estate left untouched here, with every nook and cranny filled by some sort of guitar layer or riff, vocal harmony, synth line, studio effect, extra percussion, finger snaps, or folk instrument. This makes an album that’s already unsure of its own flow and cohesiveness even harder to follow along with, as it is just constantly throwing everything it has at the listener. Sadly, the worst of these production issues fall upon Su-metal’s vocals. Having seen Babymetal last month, I’m well aware of what an amazing singer she is, exhibiting tone, control, and power well beyond her 21 years and all while dancing and jumping around like a woman possessed. But on Metal Galaxy, her voice is absolutely buried in unnecessary effects that range from vocoders, pitch shifters, Harmonizer, and autotune. It’s clear that this is an aesthetic choice, meant to suit the album’s futuristic and poppier vibe, but what it mostly serves to do is bury Su’s voice in the mix and obscure her powerful vocal melodies. In a way, it’s a testament to the skill of everyone involved in Babymetal that these songs actually sound better live, but it’s a shame that the recorded versions are so bogged down by bad sound design.
So what’s the verdict on Metal Galaxy? Well, it’s not a perfect album. It lacks for a cohesive flow and has a tendency to pogo around genres like a kid in a candy shop, all while suffering from some over the top production choices that often drown out the best parts of the songs. But really, those issues are pretty easy to overlook given the absolute scale and ambition of this album. Babymetal tries just about everything under the sun here, and the vast majority of these songs only end up the better for it. Elevator Girl, Shanti Shanti Shanti, Brand New Day, Kagerou, Starlight and Arkadia are all easily some of the best songs this band has ever written, and the weirder experiments are an absolute joy to listen to even if your mileage will vary greatly with some of them (Oh! Majinai, anyone?). While these songs don’t always complement each other in the tracklist, on their own they’re simply great songs, and that’s always been the litmus test for Babymetal’s music. As long as they’re still finding ways to kick down new doors and dare the listener to tell them not to, then they’re still just as vital and exciting as the day they started. This band has seen the world and come away better for it, and in their quest to incorporate a little bit of everything into their universe, they’ve shown us that the one true way through adversity is an open mind, a willing spirit, and the fearlessness to dive headfirst in things that may or may not work. Because as long as you’re reaching for the stars, you’re bound to grab a few, and those are the ones that light up Babymetal’s Metal Galaxy.
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