BABYMETAL
Metal Resistance
earMusic
2016
BABYMETAL is annoying to me for a variety of reasons, firstly because it wastes in a patent way the talents of guitarist Takayoshi Ohmura, who prior to this had performed as a member of Marty Friedman’s solo band, as well as released EPs and albums, featuring some of metal’s elite singers ie Doogie White, Riot’s Tony Moore, Ted Poley, Mark Boals and many more… he is now reduced to a decorative role, as a backing musician in a fusion group between rock/metal and idol/JPop music, where he performs in the background as the trio of singers dancers sing away in Japanese over some happy Ova styled anthems, like the ones you’d hear in Anime films. Hardly anything groundbreaking or not monotonous. Still the “Kami” band have found the perfect vehicle to making a lot of money while shredding/riffing away in their native land, which in the past has sustained entire bands releases on the strength of its sales, without even having to come up with any very imaginative parts, as it’s mostly cookie cutter shred recipes, executed at maximum speed.
Hijacking the “metal part” for something that would work as a soundtrack to a game or an anime film, with hardly any true musical merit, with a lot of repetitive parts, which are as unimaginative as they come, despite being ultra-fast, “Metal Resistance” fails miserably in a) being anything like metal, or b) being that interesting bar some nice leads here and there that are however super generic and mostly ornamental, as the mix is focused on the 3 underage teens that “front” the band.
This sounds like the ugly Asian lovechild between Yngwie Malmsteen and Godzilla. I really cannot stand the vocals at all!!! If “Road of Resistance”, “KARATE” and the atmospheric “From Dusk Till Dawn” were instrumental I maybe could give two shots. “Tales of the Destinies” is not horrible either, but that doesn’t make it good, make no mistake. Also “The One” the sole song in “English” has a sort of OK chorus… but that’s not saying much eh… Hipster, perv/shred idol “metal” for readers of crappy UK rock media to salivate over.
PS: I would however pay good money to listen to them cover Steel Panther’s “Asian Hooker”… lol!
Hijacking the “metal part” for something that would work as a soundtrack to a game or an anime film, with hardly any true musical merit, with a lot of repetitive parts, which are as unimaginative as they come, despite being ultra-fast, “Metal Resistance” fails miserably in a) being anything like metal, or b) being that interesting bar some nice leads here and there that are however super generic and mostly ornamental, as the mix is focused on the 3 underage teens that “front” the band.
This sounds like the ugly Asian lovechild between Yngwie Malmsteen and Godzilla. I really cannot stand the vocals at all!!! If “Road of Resistance”, “KARATE” and the atmospheric “From Dusk Till Dawn” were instrumental I maybe could give two shots. “Tales of the Destinies” is not horrible either, but that doesn’t make it good, make no mistake. Also “The One” the sole song in “English” has a sort of OK chorus… but that’s not saying much eh… Hipster, perv/shred idol “metal” for readers of crappy UK rock media to salivate over.
PS: I would however pay good money to listen to them cover Steel Panther’s “Asian Hooker”… lol!