Album Review: Babymetal - Metal Forth
Reviewed by Eric Clifford
There are times when I wonder if I’m qualified to opine on something, which is a sticky conundrum to face when reviewing that something. Part of the problem is that this Babymetal album is crafted for sensibilities not diametrically in opposition to my own, but certainly a few fathoms removed. There are sounds and genre features lifted from the length and breadth of the musical spectrum, and some of them don’t just irritate me, they actively induce borderline homicidal rage. But it wouldn’t do just to engage with this on such a wantonly uncharitable level, so what I’m going to try to do is engage with it in consideration of how it might land with those among us who do find Babymetal’s efforts to be as elevating as I find them exasperating. My apologies in advance then; this isn’t for me, but it might well be for you, and I’ll do my best to explain why.
This is the sort of thing the Doom Slayer would listen to if he was a weeb. Too negative already? Alright then, lets instead kick off with something the album does inarguably brilliantly: anything this catchy normally requires quarantining. That makes sense though right? in large part it’s a pop album with big, distorted guitars. As such, when “From Me To U” or “RATATATA” swan dive at you like a toddler hooked on sherbert with these gigantic choruses it will be lodged in your memory for the rest of your born days. It’s bubbly, ebullient, hyperactively energetic, and if this sort of thing appeals to you, then the same sugary, bubblegum sweetness glazing the whole album that has my kidneys audibly begging for death is probably going to have you head over heels for it. Algorism’s chiptune intro and slick leads play like the upbeat, relentlessly energising title credits for an anime in which a grumpy, aggressively antisocial but somehow sexually irresistible asshole of a highschool boy with a demon welded to his soul that only comes out when he plays especially tense games of fucking Beyblade upon which the fate of the world hinges for some convoluted reason or other. The sheer exuberance of the album is undeniable; it cannot be refuted. I can sit here in corpse-paint and a permanent scowl, surrounded by pentagrams and Dark Funeral albums, all I want – my foot still starts tapping as soon as the rambunctious bounce of “METAL!!” kicks into high gear.
Especially considering that there are times on the album when it goes full speed ahead in a direction I can get all the way onboard with. “White Flame” is a power metal track, and a really good, Lovebite-ish one at that. Speedy, anthemic, full to bursting with dazzling technical flourishes (that solo man, come on, it’s such a skilful synthesis of melody and alacritous fretboard abuse). Elsewhere, “Song 3” swings for the gut with outrageously weighty slams and “back the fuck off bro” chugs that threaten an imminent bludgeoning. It’s easily the most “death” oriented track of the bunch – appropriately enough considering the presence of Slaughter to Prevail’s Alex Terrible. The longer I listen to the album the more I get the impression that Babymetal are in some regards DJs; they take sounds and snippets of other bands and outfits and recompile them into something of their own - any more features on this album and they’d essentially be an orchestra. The talent involved cannot be gainsaid, but I can’t pretend I enjoyed everything heaped upon me - I’m sure that the jittery trap-metal of KxAxWxAxIxI is Japan trying to get revenge, and not for the first time I wonder what I’ve done to deserve it. It’s this thin hi-hat rattles and toad-fart bass drops, mixed in with monotone rap and staccato chugs that finds the very last of my last nerves and plucks it like an especially contemptable harp.
The midsection of the album in particular is infested with these djent-adjacent riffs that haven’t interested me since I first heard Meshuggah do them in the 90’s. It’s a prevalent style these days, so evidently it appeals to plenty more than it does to me, but even so, “Kon! Kon!” and “My Queen” felt interminable because of it; “My Queen” in particular, with the wibbly descending electronics of it’s verse, really got on my wires. The verse instrumentation sounds like it bursts into a room enthusiastic as hell only to find something really embarrassing happening and decide over the space of a few seconds that it would rather be anywhere else in the entire universe; If a wilting erection had a sound, it would be this. So much of the rest of the song just feels like all there is to it is finding an octave somewhere below the sea floor and riding the bottom string endlessly. It wouldn’t be fair to call the song “simple”; the components might be, but there is a lot of them going on all at once. I realise that the guitars are meant to pin the song down and allow the vocals and electronics to do the heavy lifting for the melodies, but I’ve never been able to connect with stuff like this. That said, Spirit Box (who are the feature for this song) sprint at the head of the pack of mainstream metal for a lot of people these days; if you are one of those people, this song will most likely inflame your passions a lot more than it did mine.
To wrap things up on that note, the clientele Babymetal have in mind will doubtless enjoy this far more than my curmudgeonly arse ever could; on that basis, if you like this band, you shouldn’t take any of the cantankerous verbiage I’ve flung in their general direction as a disqualifier. I think, looked at from an overarching perspective, what Babymetal bring to metal is uniformly a good thing. Metal these days is a sprawling, multifarious domain, as diverse and vital as it’s ever been. The flipside to that is that you almost certainly won’t care for all of it. That, I think, is where I’m finding myself with Babymetal. There is much I can appreciate about their sound, and even for a lot of the aspects for which I hold an active dislike, I can at least concede that they are broadly well done. You see, Babymetal remind me of mushrooms. I detest mushrooms. But I can at least admit that a given meal is done well even if it includes mushrooms and is therefore a hateful strike aimed my very existence. If black was white, up was down, and I somehow liked mushrooms, then I would also like that meal. What I’m searching for out of the band is something they’re never going to give me; alas, my yearning for a Babymetal raw black metal album is likely to forever go unfulfilled. But if that doesn’t describe you, if you do not shun the sunlight, if you do not prefer to spend your time scrabbling about the underbelly of the internet to find obscure goregrind demos, if you have a healthy, well adjusted outlook on life and society, then give this new Babymetal album a try. Chances are you’ll like it.
As a lover of Babymetal, I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed this review.
What a fantastically entertaining way to describe the dissonance between yourself and the music.
Bravo – and thanks.