siLLy puPPy Metal is an interesting genre of music indeed. Despite its nearly half century of expanding its sonic tentacles in virtually every direction of the musical spectrum, it has nevertheless for the most part managed to keep itself confined in a self-imposed box of sort. With very few exceptions that are more regarded as “novelty” rather than “true metal,” the genre has remained steadfast in the darkened section of the music store and although the paranoia and social outrage of early Black Sabbath has expanded into the more extreme arenas of Satanism, murder and suicide, the genre has pretty much followed the general trend of remaining a slap in the face for those unaccustomed to its ugly characteristics molded into various shades of palatability.

Then every once in a while, some act dares to break these unspoken conventions and finds a polarizing effect of utmost praise for its original and fresh approach as well as gag inducing condemnation for crossing those nebulous invisible barriers a tad too far. While one gimmick seems to work for a certain band, the next may fail to walk that precarious tightrope act and have a completely different outcome. Such is the case with Japan’s BABYMETAL who emerged in 2014 after gaining independence from serving as a sub-unit of the Japanese idol group Sakura Gakuin. With the idea that the metal market is saturated with not only the old school acts still in existence but countless new strains of the genre, the band was marketed just as was sushi which delivered something completely new to the multi-decade paradigm.

While BABYMETAL is fronted by a mere trio of female teenagers looking more like the next candidate for a tween pop band blasting on headphones far and wide through Japan’s youth, the band is in fact consists of a multitude of musicians and lyricists which creates a more varied sound than would be possible if a mere small group of artists were in charge. BABYMETAL started the trend of taking the unlikely companions of heavy metal and J-pop and mixing them together which means cute cuddly girl vocal pop with serious metallic bombast along for the ride. While tagged in some camps as “trance metal,” a sub-genre that mixes clean melodic styles with melodic death metal, silky smooth symphonic elements and electronic dance music, BABYMETAL delivers a more specialized sound that is known as “kawaii metal,” also known as “idol metal” or “cute metal” on their self-titled debut album which invaded the metal scene in 2014.

This little sub-sub-genre of “kawaii metal” specifically refers to the fusion of heavy metal bombast with J-pop melodies that incorporates everything from hip hop and dance music to bubblegum pop and dubstep. The metal aspects can range from death and industrial to speed, power and classic 80s. Despite the utter contempt heaped upon this band from the old school metalheads who don’t fancy crossing those invisible lines into the world of “cuteness” in their metal, BABYMETAL nevertheless has been quite successful with this debut selling over 100,000 copies in Japan alone and finding a larger audience around the world. These high school age girls have already embarked on many world tours and whether you love em or hate em, BABYMETAL is a band that has managed to capture the attention of just about every metal fan out there, a rare unifying factor almost unheard of in the 21st century.

Yes, BABYMETAL is a gimmick for sure but so is pretty much everything out there. It’s a given that when certain bands whether it be My Dying Bride, Overkill, Pantera or Metallica break free from the style that brought them to the world’s attention find visceral reactions against the sudden change and more often than not revert back to their true and tested style that the fanbase loves to much. Musically this is metal through and though. The bombast of the incessant guitar riffing, death growls, percussive blastbeats and general orotundity pays homage to the world of extreme metal perfectly however it will be the cutesy attack of J-pop melodies and clean girlie vocal charm of Su-metal (Suzuka Nakamoto), Yuimetal (Yui Mizuno) and Moametal (Moa Kikuchi) that will leave the old schoolers shaking their heads in disbelief.

Despite all the downright disdain casted toward this style of music, BABYMETAL in reality cranks out a rather innoxious form of pop metal that while not the cream of crop of pop infused metal hooks is by no means as bad as it’s made out to be. While not exactly my preferred style of metal, i can’t help but find this a refreshing addition to the mostly testosterone fueled metal universe. Cute cuddly J-pop melodies snuggle up with hardcore metal fury. Now that’s not something you won’t hear everyday! Perhaps we should call this “Hello Kitty metal!” A few factors of this debut do keep its originality dampened. Firstly, the tracks tend to start sounding the same as the album approaches the one hour mark. There could have been more variation to keep my interest as many of the tracks start sounding samy. So in the end, i won’t pretend that i have joined the fan club and am anxiously awaiting the next BABYMETAL tour since this is in the same camp as say Dethklok, but it’s certainly no throwaway metal either. The J-pop meets metal possibilities need some more work but offer a new slice of the metal universe to expand upon.

Warthur J-Pop/metal mashup act Babymetal get a lot of needless flack. Yes, they're three singers who work with session musicians and were assembled as a unit by their record label; those are the conventions of the idol genre they hail from. But they had adapted quite admirably to those conventions of the metal genre compatible with their schtick - for instance, they shifted quite early on from having prerecorded backing tracks to actual backing musicians for their live appearances, which shows a decent level of respect for how things are done in the metal sphere, and they genuinely seem to enjoy metal at that. (Yes, their label probably encourage them to put across the right image... but their label has literally dozens of idol singers to choose from, they wouldn't have picked Su-metal, Moametal and Yuimetal if they didn't figure the trio had at least some affinity for the genre.)

And the fact is, the musical package delivered on this second album is actually pretty good! Their compositional team manage to skillfully work in a range of nods to different metal subgenres over the course of the album - power metal and symphonic metal tend to be especially prominent, but there's also the odd prog metal twist, and Sis. Anger is actually a pretty brutal Babymetal take on black metal, which is taken on by Yuimetal and Moametal as a duo (tagged "Black Babymetal") in a fairly wise choice, given that Sui-metal's more gentle vocal style wouldn't be right for it.

But what really makes Babymetal's act stand out is the vocals themselves, and I genuinely think that Metal Resistance accomplishes a really interesting adaptation of the J-pop idol singing style to this context. Yes, it's not what metal fans are used to, and some purists may gripe about it - but purists who insist on metal staying within strict pre-existing boundaries aren't going to like an awful lot of more widely-accepted bands either. The fact is that metal has always had a certain flair for diverse styles, experimentation, and genre-blending. Nobody thought you could mix jazz and metal until Cynic, Atheist and the like did it, for instance, and I don't think incorporating a particular vocal style which is unusual for metal is any less worthwhile an experiment than that.

In short, I'm on the Babymetal bandwagon and there isn't a gosh-darn thing any of you can do about it. And after their time in the spotlight is over, once their finely-choreographed routines are no longer performed, and once everyone moves on, this will still stand as a genuinely interesting album which did a little something to expand the boundaries of metal, and we should be grateful to them for doing that, just as we should be grateful to everyone who succeeds at creating something genuinely musically novel.

Vim Fuego Babymetal caused something of a shitstorm when they dropped their self-titled debut album on an unsuspecting metal world in 2014. Imagine anyone having the audacity to mix metal with a Japanese girl band!

It shouldn’t be allowed to happen. Metal is supposed to be a grass roots form of music, created by fans of the music for the music’s sake. J-Pop is supposed to be the exact opposite, a cynical construction of fiendish big-business record companies trying to screw stupid people out of their money by making music to the lowest common denominator. Combining the two could only be a flash-in-the-pan gimmick. Metal fans the world over were outraged at the manipulation of the music they hold so dear! The protests fell on deaf ears, and Babymetal’s music did not.

Gimmick or not, there’s a huge audience for this band now, and the fad has yet to run its course. The singers Su-metal, Yuimetal and Moametal are all former members of Japanese idol group Sakura Gakuin, which was further subdivided into sub-groups, or clubs, which eventually led to the formation of Babymetal. Babymetal’s music is fairly straight forward. It’s mostly standard melodic death/power metal, in the vein of Children of Bodom, with emphasis on strong pop melodies, spiced up with metallic riffs and double kick drums, all overlaid with pop vocals. These ingredients led to the self-titled debut album charting well all over the world.

And “Metal Resistance” is more of the same. The album kicks off with “Road of Resistance”, a collaboration with Sam Totman and Herman Li from DragonForce. As you’d expect from any track featuring Totman and Li, it’s hyperspeed shred with the three girls’ cutesy vocals over it, not far removed from DragonForce at all.

Second track “KARATE” is familiar, sounding like a heavier version of such European female fronted metal as Lacuna Coil, Nightwish or Within Temptation, although with the teen trio’s shrill vocals. On the track “Meta Taro”, the vocal melodies are infectious, and the harmonies are chanted. “From Dusk Til Dawn” features dub step breakdowns, which are a little distracting, but give the song some variety. “Sis.Anger” is one of the most metallic sounding songs the band has ever played, almost veering into full on death metal, with a growled backing vocal and blast beats. In the end though, this album starts to drag. Power ballad “No Rain, No Rainbow” is generic and dull. Closing track “THE ONE (English Version)” is an endurance test, which can’t finish soon enough.

Babymetal really makes so much more sense in a live setting. The live show the band puts on is visually impressive, with the three girls highly choreographed, and the focal point of the show. The metal musicians are deliberately masked and anonymous, and no one really pays much attention to them anyway. Compared to the live show, this whole album is a little deflating, and just a bit too slick. There are a few highlights, the DragonForce collaboration being one, but for serious metal fans, this is just a bit too thin on really gripping content.

Babymetal is neither the death of metal, nor it’s saviour. Love it or hate it, “Metal Resistance” is still going to sell truckloads.