BABYMETAL - Metal Galaxy (2019)^{Release ID: 14278}

Most Random Crossover Of 2019 Award

All things considered, I should be part of the target audience for BABYMETAL. I'm a guy who's into Metal and has been playing all kinds of rhythm games for years, starting with DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) and eventually getting into Stepmania and Osu! among others. After all those years of playing I've grown to tolerate and enjoy rhythm game music whether it's Eurobeat, warped Sound Voltex tracks, or hard-style electronic music. It's very hard for me not to draw any parallels between BABYMETAL'S music and the songs I enjoy playing in rhythm games, and not just because "Road of Resistance" was a popular Osu! map. When the second track of an album starts out with the infamous Seiryu's "Crystal Critical" sample that's been used a million times before, I feel like I know what kind of album I'll be dealing with. While there were a few surprisingly competent and catchy parts to this album, I got what I expected, which was a driving and hook-laden album with predictable and boring performances from the Metal portion of the act.

Boring guitar riffs and questionable harsh vocals aside, I'm surprised at how many decent songs there are on here. "Distortion" is a perfect example of their style done correctly with a standard metal riff and a pumping electronic melody bouncing off of each other, some pretty limp sounding double bass, and a catchy chorus to top it off. "Kagerou" is a straight up J-Rock song that I have little complaints about, and "Da Da Dance" and "Elevator Girl" are undeniably catchy, even if they are by-the-book pop songs when put under a microscope. Past that, Metal Galaxy attempts to throw in every piece of clichéd, overused international music they can into tracks like "Shanti Shanti Shanti", "Oh! Majinai", and "Night Night Burn!". "Oh! Majinai" is especially hilarious as Joakim from Sabaton pays a visit, securing the award for "Most Random Crossover Of 2019". Sadly, even Joakim couldn't save this track as he bellows out some strange sea shanty that just doesn't work at all. "In the Name Of" is notably weak as well, with some pretty laughable harsh vocals. 

Considering a few years ago BABYMETAL were a complete joke that I had a good laugh at, Metal Galaxy really isn't that bad, sporting a few good and catchy songs with a decent and varied second half. The main vocalist who started this whole project is competent as well and is one of the main reasons the band has such draw on platforms like YouTube. As unique as they are, BABYMETAL will never be more than a pop group with a well thought out gimmick to me, and as infectious as their some of songs are I hesitate to call it well performed or written. To make sure I don't have to talk about BABYMETAL again for the foreseeable future, let's do a quick deep dive. 

When BABYMETAL was formed in 2010, it was an offshoot of a female idol group created because a producer enjoyed metal music. After the lead singer was chosen, the producer tacked on two other girls to serve as backup performers and a full metal band. From there they performed at live shows until there was enough visibility and buzz to start releasing albums starting in 2014. This fact alone does a great job of putting BABYMETAL'S music into a better perspective as more of a live performance than meticulously created pieces of music. Groups like BABYMETAL want their music to directly service their live show, which Metal Galaxy probably does well. I can see this kind of stuff being very exciting to see live for fans of the band along with whatever performance and choreography they have planned for each song. 

Japanese idol group or not, I still can't get into it. Maybe some of the songs off of here will make it into Osu!, in which case I'll be revisiting BABYMETAL for a few plays and retries.

I have found myself very distant from the metal community for quite some time. It seems like every time a new there is a new progressive-djent/avant-garde/extreme brutal death metal band doesn’t garner any mainstream attention, those fans complain that not enough people are listening to their new favourite artist. However, when a metal band manages to garner a little bit of mainstream attention, everyone loses their minds that their precious genre is being commercialized. Everyone needs a starting point to get into the different music genres. For me, it was the 90s output of Metallica, with the Load and Reload albums (I’m too young to remember the self titled album).

The new craze of the 2010s has been BABYMETAL, a J-Pop duo whose backing band uses distorted, and drop tuned electric guitars and double bass drums. None of these are bad things on their own. And hell, even the bands last album, METAL RESISTANCE, was a branch away from the very coy, happy-go-lucky nature of the self titled album. So I could only hope that METAL GALAXY would continue this trend.

Alright, props to everyone involved for experimenting with some new sounds. However, with an album called METAL GALAXY, it is pretty obvious from the start that this is going to be a more electronic metal experience. The opening track “FUTURE METAL” is proof of this; lots of synth and electronic percussion. And while this isn’t always a bad thing, BABYMETAL are a group that could have desperately used some better mixing of the electronic elements.

For one, the opening track “FUTURE METAL” uses these really generic sounding guitar tones, matched with a poorly mixed percussion whose bass thumps clip the mic and don’t sound pleasing at all. The vocals are almost always pushed to the front of the mix, but when the singer is in her higher register, it peaks on tracks like “PA PA YA!!” and “Starlight”. Otherwise, you end with the pitch corrected “IN THE NAME OF”, where the vocals are pitch shifted to Hell itself, over a Slipknot B-side.

Other tracks are mixed better; “Shanti Shanti Shanti” is alright and I really liked the atmospheric elements added to “Kagerou”. The group is at its best when the guitars are given heavy prominence, like on the power metal outro “Arkadia”, the counterpoint between voice and guitar on “DA DA DANCE” and the quasi-ballad “Shine”.

The experimental elements come in the form of hybrids with other styles of metal. “Shanti Shanti Shanti” has melodic passages that sound borrowed for oriental metal, which I respect, but artists like Orphaned Land have pulled sound off with organic tones much better in the past. “Oh! MAJINAI” borrows from folk and pagan metal as it uses bagpipes as a secondary melodic instrument and every time I hear it I can’t wipe that stupid grin off of my face. It’s so goofy, yet still very satisfying. “Distortion” is the groups attempt to crossover as it calls upon Alissa White-Gluz of Arch Enemy. And I already mentioned the power metal “Arkadia”, and the atmospherics of “Kagerou”.

As for the vocals themselves, they sound okay. I find that more often than not, when the vocalists are higher register, they peak in the mix and don’t really allow for any subtlety in the instrumentation. Of course, BABYMETAL is also dealing with the fact that they have lost one of their members since the release of METAL GALAXY. The vocal layering sounds fine, but it is quite obvious that a lot of the vocals have been fixed in post-production, which is a little disappointing.

As a whole, METAL GALAXY is a serviceable metal/pop record. I think that the group has had better days and that many of the experimental elements on this record don’t work as well as previous albums had. Still, there is nothing overtly offensive about it; this is pop music with crunchy guitars and djent-y breakdowns. If that sounds like something you would like, you probably will.