Metal Resistance

BABYMETAL AWAKENS!! Announces 3rd Album Release Date, European Tour and More

/ DAEMON

On night one of BABYMETAL AWAKENS – The Sun Also Rises at Yokohama arena, KOBAMETAL woke up and realized he had forgotten to tell anyone when the group’s new album was being released. Shortly following Friday night’s show, he finally announced:

METAL GALAXY, BABYMETAL’s third album, will be released on October 11th 2019. This date coincides with their first-ever U.S arena show at the Forum in Los Angeles.

The 16-track album will come in at least seven flavors:

  • Limited SUN version – (2CD / Analog size jacket) – ¥ 4,500
  • Limited MOON edition – (2CD / Analog size jacket) – ¥ 4,500
  • Limited edition – (2CD + DVD) – ¥ 4,200 
  • Normal edition – (2CD) – ¥ 3,500
  • Analog version – (2Vinyl) – ¥ 5,000
  • THE ONE Limited Edition- (2CD + DVD) – ¥ 9,000 + THE ONE fan club membership
  • A transparent vinyl version has also popped up on the English language store.

Continue reading →

We Over-Analyze Things: BABYMETAL | “Elevator Girl”

/ DAEMON / 2 Comments

It was about time BABYMETAL paid homage to David Bowie. I mean, while Bowie crushed just about every pop genre on the planet except Heavy Metal, he was largely responsible for the early creation of Glam Rock.

  • Without Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust, we have no KISS.  
  • Without KISS to influence a young Yoshiki, we have no X Japan.
  • With no X Japan, we have no BABYMETAL.

So when BABYMETAL’s new single, “Elevator Girl”, opens by directly channeling the piano riff from Bowie’s early 80s classic, “Modern Love”, the circle of life seems, in some ways, complete. In truth, the direct influence on this single is probably less Bowie’s soul and groove-flavored New Wave, and more the J-Pop fusion of acid jazz, funk and techno that coalesced around the same time period into the broad City Pop genre. City Pop has seen a lot of attention lately with interest from Vaporwave aesthetes, YouTube channels streaming curated City Pop feeds 24-7, and it’s own brief “I didn’t know [insert name here] put out a City Pop album” meme.

City Pop is also heavily influencing a number of current groups in the alternative idol world including early album-of-the-year contenders Atarashii Gakkou No Leaders, GuGu-LuLu and the fledgling OWA Yoru.

(This is a lot of words so far just to talk about a three-minute song. What we are seeing here is an unfortunate side effect when a group as musically fascinating as BABYMETAL only releases three pieces of new material in a twelve-month span. In the absence of an “Elevator Girl” MV to talk about, let’s continue the over-analysis:) 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.

BABYMETAL Announces Release of New Album TBD, 2019

/ DAEMON / 1 Comment

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 →

We May Be Able to Watch the Babymetal Tokyo Dome Shows Anyway

/ Homicidol Maniac / 6 Comments

Well if this isn’t an interesting piece of news:

It’s actually even better than that! Continue reading →

The International Grows: ‘Metal Resistance’ in French Magazine ‘Coyote’

/ Homicidol Maniac

Courtesy of our friend Pascal, here’s a review of Metal Resistance in the French J-culture magazine Coyote:

Scan of a review of Babymetal's Metal Resistance written in the French J-culture magazine Coyote

Pascal’s translation:

Musical phenomenon, to some, just a curiosity to others, Babymetal represents the unnatural union of J-Pop and extreme metal ! ie three kawaï female singers performing bouncy melodies over sharp riffs, furious blast-beats and salient electro sounds provided by a harsh metal band ! As amazing as it seems, this system goes full speed, and this second album, in its way of exploring different styles (heavy, thrash, black, speed), is terribly efficient – despite a few errors of taste and an inevitably too clean production.

When Pascal shared this, his comments were interesting and on point: It’s weird how this review isn’t just late to the party in how it exists, but in how it seems to barely understand this whole “baby metal” thing that just so happened to be in France for the third year in a row; like, do you want to review the album in context? discuss the actual cultural phenomenon? anything? The last time our kind of idols appeared in Coyote, the context felt right; not so here.

There might be a point here about how things like this show that our Babybubble might actually have more fixed walls than we think, that every Late Show or Golden Gods appearance is countered by the raw cultural weight of so many other things enjoyed in preference by several hundred more people, and that, for every what feels like a step forward for the hard side of idol in the West, there’s still a massive amount of ignorance and even hostility.

There also might be a point here about lazy writers, short-sighted editors and/or the restrictions of print formats.

Either way.

I Get into Arguments: Maniac vs. Alex Shenmue

/ Homicidol Maniac / 2 Comments

It is the Official Policy of Homicidols.com* that Babymetal is cool and good. Metal Resistance is not a perfect album, but it is a very good one, and even the parts of it that I was most critical of initially are winning me over.

Alex Shenmue, the big brain behind his self-named blog, was one of the very few reviewers of Metal Resistance to give the record a not-good score, and one of the even fewer to do it with, like, reasons and stuff.

Despite being mistaken and wrong and probably someone who steals candy from children, Alex is clearly an intelligent human, and he proved that by accepting my challenge to a debate of sorts:

We reviewed one another’s reviews. I formulated very smart and good arguments; I think Alex may still be trying to cope with the depth of self-loathing he must feel to be so bitter and angry, as he was unable to convert being smart to having good arguments, and the only logical conclusion thereupon is that he has lost the capacity to think.

Anyway, we had some fun assaulting one another’s opinions. Check it out!  Continue reading →

I Review Things: Babymetal | “METAL RESISTANCE”

/ Homicidol Maniac / 13 Comments

Disclaimer: I wasn’t going to write this review. I have a much more interesting concept for Babymetal and Metal Resistance that I’m working on with another writer, but the more I listened to this album, the more I felt that there were things that needed to be addressed; and, for what it’s worth, That Other Thing will be a lot better for me having done this first. So.

On to the review!
Continue reading →

Watch Babymetal’s Live Video for ‘The One’

/ Homicidol Maniac / 3 Comments

Screw it. Not even Babymetal is interested in honoring exclusive release deals anymore.

I’ll be nice and honor the “exclusive” opportunity for Billboard. Click this and go watch the video on their page.

What a chorus.

What the ‘KARATE’ Video Says about the Future of Babymetal & Idol Metal

/ Homicidol Maniac / 20 Comments

Have you seen Babymetal’s “KARATE” video yet?


Now you have.

When it comes to a cultural touchstone like Babymetal, there’s no such thing as “just a video,” and I can’t imagine a more “just a video” than “KARATE.” But it says an incredible amount about where Babymetal is now, where they’re going as a performing entity and what the future of what we call homicidols might be challenged to be. Continue reading →