So, Ladybaby, as you recall, began life with the Beard himself adding growls and screams and the like to what was usually otherwise a jangly mess of sounds from a drunken night in Akihabara. Sometimes a delight! Following his departure, though, the mechanical add-on harsh vocals seemed like some kind of rude joke; they got the point across, but with none of the pizzazz unless you’re very easily impressed.

When the group underwent its complete re-tool following the falling-out etc. between Rie and Rei*, one could be forgiven for thinking that the old way of doing things was going to be politely left aside. The piped-in death growls were kind of ha-ha cheesy at first, only to become just-plain cheesy in short order, to the point of ridiculousness, so songs that just skipped that whole bit and instead tried to actually be good songs, they were way more enjoyable; I mean, I know that people loved the hell out of “Pelo”, but I’m still overly partial to “LADY BABY BLUE”, which is as far a departure from “Nippon Manju” as you’ll find this side of a Negicco ballad.

And then they decided to let in this girl: Continue reading →