Idol Metal

For pages and posts that relate to heavy metal music performed by idol groups.

Broken By the Scream Drop New MV and Album Release Date in Lead Up to U.S. Debut

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Broken By the Scream will set foot on American soil for the first time in just under three weeks unleashing their kawaii-meets-deathcore stylings on a live crowd at Saboten Con in Phoenix, Arizona.  Because the one thing hype needs is more hype, BBTS also dropped a couple of  bombshells over the weekend:

  • The release date for their second full album, Noisy Night Fever;
  • And the MV for “Aihakimino”, the theme song for the upcoming PS4 game “Onechanbara Origin”.

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Let’s Crowdfund Like Hell for FRUITPOCHETTE!

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If you Weekender, you know that I keep up with Azuma Shiori fairly often (even if I don’t really understand it), ex and current and nominal leader of metal-as-hell Ehime-based duo FRUITPOCHETTE; what I’d be doing instead in a just world is dedicating that energy to the actual project that she co-fronts, except that FRUITPOCHETTE, despite coming back to life and filling me with glee about it, has been pretty quiet since the re-launch, and I thought that they were probably taking the whole “this is part-time” thing extra seriously — maybe you could catch them playing the old hits on a weekend, or at a festival or something.

And maybe that was true until a couple of days ago, when — bam! — out comes the crowdfunding effort that you and I and everybody we know absolutely must get behind:

Basically, in honor of their first anniversary since reunification, the idea is to fund a new single, an MV for that single, and a nationwide release tour. It opens on Sunday. Let’s give them all of the money! Continue reading →

JyuJyu and the Unsettling Summer Single

/ Homicidol Maniac

This post, you guys, I’ll tell you: I started this the day the following MV (spoiler alert!) dropped, and wrote ~most of the~ post before being called off to something else. No big deal, I thought, I’ll wrap it up tomorrow. Days later I finally remembered what was up (such is life nowadays) and I was going to CYA and put the thing into the Weekender.

What stopped me?

It’s too damn good, that’s what.

So without too much further ado: JyuJyu, not at all still reeling from the hyper-contrived nontroversy with Chunpi, are releasing a new single, and doing so in collaboration with Tenma from URBANGARDE, which is a sentence that’s always a joy to write. Watch as styles collide less heinously than you might expect, and idols whose whole angle is being cursed and doomed rip off maybe the best song of the summer: Continue reading →

And Now Babymetal Is Officially Back

/ Homicidol Maniac / 1 Comment

Now that it’s completely official, the team of moralists and ethics professors here at Homicidols Dot Com can finally talk out loud and with full candor about the second single dribbled out by Babymetal in the lead-up to their first album in three years. Yeah, we usually don’t care all that much about leaks (especially not “leaks”) in a moral sense — it’s more a “let’s see this the way it’s meant to be seen maybe” thing — but in this case it felt appropriate to hold up a minute and let the chips fall.

It’s been a weird 18 months for Babymetal fans, but as if there were any doubt after “Elevator Girl”, this latest one is as definitive and clear a statement as you’ll get that the greatest show on earth is ready to smash some skulls in as fun a way as possible:

You can do the buy/stream thing here: Continue reading →

We Review Things: NECRONOMIDOL | scions of the blasted heath

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NECRONOMIDOL release their highly anticipated five-song EP, scions of the blasted heath, this Wednesday, June 16.  It is their first studio recording since the graduation of beloved and iconic idols Hina and Sari, and the addition of new members  back in January.

Necronomidol, scions of the blast heap

This album cover is what they call a “conversation starter”.

Being the first studio offering by the new line-up of Kunogi, Michelle, Rei-chan, Okaki, Himari and her omniscient hair makes this EP one of the most eagerly awaited releases of the year. Team Homicidols were lucky enough to be blessed with a preview copy (all it cost was my soul but I wasn’t using it much anyway).  It’s a diverse set of tracks by fan-favorite songwriters exploring themes of trauma, entropy and conquest alongside the omnipresent influence of Lovecraftian terror. Here’s a sneak peak:

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New Month, New Music from Minna no Kodomochan

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I love this! The first of the month used to just mean handing over my rent check and making sure all the utilities got paid. These days, it also brings a new song from Minna no Kodomochan, one of the most musically adventurous chika idols who just happen to be hitting everything out the park recently.

You can get the song from other outlets here: https://t.co/MCpbeZzVOH

“Soliloquies” is Kodomochan’s attempt at a light, breezy summer song with acoustic guitar strumming and popcorn keyboards.  Of course, it is Kodomochan and quickly evolves into frenetic dissonance, but it never loses any of its warm charm. Continue reading →

BABYMETAL Announce U.S. and U.K. Headline Shows, “Elevator Girl” Release Date

/ DAEMON

The Fox God has spoken!! In the past 24 hours we have received (official) word of major U.S. and U.K. shows plus the release of BABYMETAL’s first new music of 2019.

BABYMETAL will be playing their first headlining U.S. arena show at The Forum in Los Angeles this coming October. The kitsune faithful were given all of 24 hours to prepare their wallets for VIP pre-sale tickets which are available this morning at 10:00 am PDT.

If simply being present wasn’t enough of a draw for you, every online ticket purchase for the L.A. Forum appearance comes with a CD copy of BABYMETAL’s forthcoming 2019 album which still doesn’t have an exact release date. This method of driving album sales is probably something they picked up while touring with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and/or Metallica who often do they same thing. It seemed a bit tricksy to me until I remembered the twelve copies of BiSH’s PAiNT it BLACK I had to buy to get checki tickets (worth it!)

BABYMETAL have played the L.A. Forum once before over the summer of 2017 while opening for Korn and Stone Sour. While this October performance will mark their first time headlining an arena show in the United States, they have headlined an arena outside of Japan once before. That was, of course, 2016’s record-setting appearance at Wembley arena in the U.K. to launch their last album, Metal Resistance.

Speaking of the U.K., they will be getting their own show this June:

Tickets go on sale tomorrow.

BABYMETAL also officially announced the worldwide digital release of the single, “Elevator Girl” on May 10th. 

The song debuted almost exactly a year ago on the U.S. leg of their 2018 World Tour. It is an upbeat prog-rock meets groove metal tune (think Toto meets Five Finger Death Punch) with ample English in the lyrics for folks to sing along to. 

This will be the first new music from the group since the criminally underrated “Starlight” was released last October.

LADYBABY Love You, but Have to Destroy You

/ DAEMON

I promise that I will never look away again.

On Team Homicidols, we’ve been distracted a lot lately by art house groups and hi-concept math-punk units or idols that make you stare at your shoes and weep.  But now that we gazed so hard at ・・・・・・・・・ that they vanished back into the ether from whence they came, it might be best to sink back into basics for a little while. Like a nice, simple “you got chocolate in my peanut butter” blend of J-pop and Metal.

I wonder what LADYBABY has been up to?

DAAAAaaaaaammnnn…

Screaming, growling, rapping, clean choruses and djenty guitars: that’s some back-to-fundamentals kawaii nu-metal right there, and a perfect illustration of how Team LADYBABY have stayed relevant though all of the unit’s formations and turmoil.  They get the basics right and they do it incredibly well.  There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, especially when the output is this ferocious and enjoyable.

I have a feeling that this MV will earn stock-image status for any future profiles of alternative idol.  It’s practically iconic.

This new release has especially got to excite everyone heading to Monster of Dolls next month in Italy as this track is going to be an absolute banger live.

We Review Things: Screaming Sixties | “Zetsu”

/ DAEMON

Zetsu is an 18-track epic from two of the greatest warriors in chika idol.  Since forming in 2014, Montero and Kai of Zekkyosuru 60 Do, aka Screaming Sixties, have driven enough miles to circumnavigate the globe twice while performing approximately 300 gigs a year. And that isn’t hyperbole.

The next time you find yourself in Japan you can be certain that, somewhere, Screaming Sixties are performing a show and you need to get to whatever city they’re playing in because that’s why they made Shinkansen.

Before I get into the review itself, I want to make sure I don’t bury the lede: This is an essential album that you need to purchase immediately!

If you have any thoughts of picking up Zetsu (and you should), you need to open the website of your Japanese music retailer of choice and order it today. Most sites are starting to flag this CD as back-ordered and, if history repeats itself, once the first pressing of this CD is sold old, the only place you will be able to find it is at a Zekkyo60 live.  Also note: most retail sites won’t recognize “Screaming Sixties” as the group name so you will need to search on Zekkyosuru 60 Do or 絶叫する60度 . Continue reading →

BABYMETAL Announces Release of New Album TBD, 2019

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BABYMETAL used Fox Day 2019 to launch a new era of ambiguity, announcing that they will finally release their long-awaited new album at some point this year.

In addition to the new album, BABYMETAL revealed some major upcoming shows.  Late June will mark SU-METAL and MOAMETAL’s return to Yokohama Arena for the Apocrypha of the Fox God’s first Hemingway reference:   BABYMETAL Awakens – The Sun Also Rises. Continue reading →