BABYMETAL

BABYMETAL. Bet you didn't see that coming after yesterday's rant about a crappy David Bowie comp. What's worse is that it's fantastic. No, not joking, it's a phenomenal self-titled debut. 

I'm totally guilty of repeated ...because, Japan jokes, and there's a fair bit of that from start to finish here, but this is good. High quality Hardcore Metal with J-Pop floating on top. It's standard Beauty and the Beast stuff like Birthday Massacre or Ike and Tina or something. 

But Bottle, BABYMETAL DEATH is literally just the words babymetal, death, and their stage names a hundred times! It's worse than Misfits' Return of the Fly! 

You mean better, right? Yeah, it's the first track of a self-titled debut by a band that was literally a school project by performing arts tweens that went internationally viral and only failed to achieve Dethklok levels of world domination because of Covid and how hard it is for Japanese teenagers to go on world stadium tours. Sure it's a concept band from a corporate talent farm, but it's a good concept. If you'll accept Ghost as legit, then not respecting BABYMETAL makes you a complete hypocrite. These girls are battling demons and chocolate addictions through interpretive dance with an actual bad-ass band backing them up. Plus, their names are Su-metal, Yuimetal, and Moametal. If that's not an homage to the Ramones then i suspect you don't know what "homage" means. 

Megitsuni is a straight up modern feminist anthem. Women aren't foxes, they've just always been forced to be actresses and hide their true selves, but times are changing. Name a thing more metal than that. You can't, on we go. 

Chocoholism. 

Repurposing the standard devil horns as the symbol of the fox, and by the way you're supposed to be moshing right after this hip-hop interlude. Holy shit, i was not ready for that drop and segue into Atari-core. 

Even though we're fighting right now, i'm gonna love you 'til i die and/or the moon bleeds. You could argue something gets lost in translation, but it's not unintelligible. 

What it's like to be a Japanese teenage girl? Ok, i got no argue. 

Onedari Daisakusen definitely does not translate well to English. Or maybe it translates too perfectly and is supposed to be ultra-disturbing innuendo. I'm thinking it's supposed to be more like a spoiled brat version of Madonna's Material Girl. 

Four is for happiness and it definitely doesn't in any way mean "to die." Where the hell did the Reggae come from? 4 is for vitamin c? Song 4 is also song 8, so we're just gonna pretend that's a Steppenwolf inspired counting mix up. 

Uki Uki is just way too WTF to even begin to dissect. 

Catch Me If You Can is literally a game of hide and seek, but for some reason red shoes are dangerous. "No, not yet"? Is there an age restriction on red shoes? I am so confused. 

Thankfully Rondo Nightmare is totally normal abstract Romantic macabreness. It reminds me of that one The Used song where they do the Goth Emo parody of the neverending story. All that i want, i think it was. 

Fifteen year olds gotta headbang, you know? 

Just say no to bullying. As god is my witness i thought foxes could fly, you know like turkeys and poodles. I know the fox is their spirit animal, i just couldn't resist the WKRP/UHF whiffle ball they floated across the plate. 

Look, this thing is IWRESTLEDABEARONCE level insanity with way catchier melodies and skeleton costumes. All jokes aside though, this is probably a superb entry into the serious topic of Superflat. I'll quote the official definition: 

A term coined and defined by Murakami Takashi, “superflat” refers to a tendency toward planarity in Japanese art, as well as superficiality and a lack of depth in postwar Japanese society and culture more generally—sublimated trauma and the blurring of boundaries. 

If you didn't notice every bit of that in this album, then you clearly weren't paying attention. As bizarre as it comes across while listening, this is literally an album about dealing with your demons while lacking the expressive cultural nuance necessary to articulate such a deeply complex psychological process. Hence the grappling for any relevant aspects of other cultures that can compliment the relatively simplistic, we might say childlike, shared experiences one can express. It's like inverse innuendo, or only being able to speak in song titles. 

Regardless, we have to give it a final verdict, and this thing just plain rocks. It's also the very definition of Corporate Metal, but in this case it makes it all the more fascinating. Like it or not (i like it very much) it's highly intellectually stimulating. I'd totally unironically stock this album at Bottle's Records. 

There you go, the rave review you never knew you needed. Enjoy.