Babymetal - Metal Forth - review
Babymetal - Metal Forth - review
Tracklist
01. From Me To U [feat. Poppy]02. Ratatata [Babymetal x Electric Callboy]
03. Song 3 [Babymetal x Slaughter to Prevail]
04. Kon! Kon! [feat. Bloodywood]
05. KxAxWxAxIxI
06. Sunset Kiss [feat. Polyphia]
07. My Queen [feat. Spiritbox]
08. Algorism
09. METALI!! [feat. Tom Morello]
10. White Flame ー白炎ー
A review by
ScreamingSteelUS October 29, 2025
I'll briefly track us aside to follow up on that thought: the relevant management considers this designation of "forth" justified due to 2023's The Other One being a "concept album" set off from the mainline discography, with this release being treated as the fourth full-length for counting purposes (I guess that's why they called it "the other one"). Personally, I feel compelled to bypass this judgment of concept albums as ephemeral, or else Devin Townsend is going to be distraught to learn that he has never actually released any studio albums. But thence the awkward pun, thence the occasional media reference to this as the "fourth" album. We'll proceed.
I've favored comparison to power metal in the past, as the penchant for irrepressibly bright melodies, the abnormally high-pitched vocals, and the engulfing air of whimsy are shared by both styles, and the DragonForce collaboration linking the first two albums seemed like all the evidence that comparison needed. The truth is, however, that Babymetal have been experimenting more and more frequently with much darker and more aggressive sounds, drawing from the toolkit of metalcore, djent, nu metal, and modern prog (by which I again mean djent). Even the debut itself wasn't entirely sweet and sparkly, but this side of Babymetal has surpassed in strength over the last couple of albums as the three vocalists have grown, strengthened their voices, and adapted to a more mature image. By now, it doesn't feel out of place for them to collaborate with some of the biggest names in this particular sphere of metal, creating something that's mainstream-palatable but still technically on the extreme side of things.
Thus it doesn't warrant question to see someone like Poppy joining the very first track, along with Bring Me The Horizon guitarist Jordan Fish; Poppy had dashes of so-called "kawaii metal" earlier on, and she blends indistinguishably with the high-energy hooks and sassy hardcore bite of "From Me To U". Spiritbox are super hot in the djentlecore realm right now, so of course they'd go swimmingly with the band that recorded "Karate", "GJ!", and "Distortion", pummeling breakdowns into dust beneath the combination harsh and clean vocals. Bloodywood fare much better with "Kon! Kon!" than they did with "Bekhauf" on their own album this year, with all participants sounding more like themselves and having a jauntier time (although I'd actually still rate "Shanti Shanti Shanti" as the best Indian-leaning Babymetal song). Even Slaughter To Prevail, whose comically overwrought Sumerian-core should by rights be leagues away from anyone as insistently saccharine as Babymetal, are not as un-cute as they'd have you believe; their excessively sweaty deathcore paired with goofy chipmunk vocal processing is the aural equivalent of being bludgeoned with a squeaky plastic hammer (actually, it sounds suspiciously like the first Babymetal album). For me, the biggest surprise is Tom Morello, whose song "METALI!" was released as a single two years ago and I somehow completely missed. Sure enough, it's a perfect combination anyway, and, very weirdly, the most Bloodywood-like track of any of the three considered (those chunky riffs have the right kind of bounce, and there's a (digital?) shamisen in there whose staccato plonking has the same percussive treble quality as a dhol). The powers that be also know how to pick them: we have here not only an assortment of artists who work well with this sound profile but some of the most explosively popular acts to kick out of the metal sphere in the last few years. I think we're short only the odd Sleep Token or Lorna Shore (which is fine), and then we'd be dialed into the most lucrative features a pop metal album could have.
What's more noteworthy than the specific collaborators, whose styles all mesh with Babymetal's burgeoning heavy side as if they had all independently evolved into the same crab, is just how much of this album is a collaboration: seven of the ten songs are team efforts. This level of outside involvement was technically always present, as each past Babymetal album has been a product of numerous songwriters and producers, some of whom are noteworthy recording artists in their own right, but this is the first album to advertise itself so plainly and approach the release as a primarily communal effort, rather than as said artists serving as mere producers for Babymetal. Given the success of past high-profile collaborations (including repeat offenders Polyphia), this seems within well-charted lands, and on a musical level, the transition is about as simple as going from "this song sounds like Electric Callboy" to "this song is Electric Callboy". I think what this big feature festival means is primarily a small shift in mentality: fun Babymetal is back. The Other One was pretty serious, and even Metal Galaxy before it - strong albums, full of memorable songs and interesting blends of genres, but distinctly different in tone from the band's origins, which made them strange signposts of Babymetal's future. I think that if I want this conceit to continue, I want it to be upbeat and light-hearted, even if I don't really dig idols as a concept, so finding Metal Forth packed with fun bangers and so many guests makes me feel like we're back on the right track: this is a party album. And oddly enough for such a collaborative work, there's a little more Babymetal in this one than all the others: "White Flame" contains Su-metal's second lyrical contributions, and Momometal jumps right into her studio debut with the band by putting on some theatrical spoken word in "METALI!" and performing her own harsh vocals on a few songs.
I find all of this encouraging. Babymetal have reached a point where their longevity is more surreal than the collision of styles that has gotten them this far. The longer they continue and the more the modern metal scene changes around them, the closer they hew to more mainline and less controversial integrations of pop music; a wide audience has comfortably adapted to the concept by now. What's far weirder is that their success has allowed Babymetal to outlast their parent idol project, Sakura Gakuin, by several years, and the band itself is older than Su-metal and Moametal were when this whole thing started. (Granted, the same is true of many bands, but that datum makes for a more impressive realization when the band in question is 15 years old rather than 50.) Seeing that there is still a lot of receptiveness toward this band, a lot of room for it to move forward, makes me optimistic about Babymetal's future.
The level of attention paid to each individual track here means there's no filler, at least to my ears - each song has some new and interesting twist, and the three non-collaborative tracks have very distinct identities, so I come away from Metal Forth feeling that it is a much easier, more compact listen than either of the previous two albums. It has peaks on par with Metal Galaxy, perhaps even Metal Resistance, and without the valleys or dull tonal clashes of its immediate predecessors, so I can comfortably call Metal Forth my favorite Babymetal release after Metal Resistance. And as if to allay any concerns about the project losing touch with its saccharine roots amidst all these experiments, "White Flame" closes the album with just the kind of power metal-adjacent anthem that first helped close the gap between the band and my ears (after definitely a blackened intro, just for the hell of it). I had begun to wonder over the last few years, with some anxiety, just where this project might wind up, but Metal Forth strides boldly into that future with enough fun and enough hooks to lay my concerns to rest.
Rating breakdown
| Performance: | 9 |
| Songwriting: | 9 |
| Originality: | 8 |
| Production: | 8 |
Written on 29.10.2025 by
Written on 29.10.2025 by
Dull Music for Dull People Comments
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Quite a lot of it feels more like a compilation of previously released collaborations, regardless of whether they were actually released before. It's nice to have a Babymetal that's able to lean into both this more collaborative / fun side and the more mature and cohesive side.
---- Do you think if the heart keeps on shrinking One day there will be no heart at all?
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Isn't it weird, that between Bekhauf, all of Nu Delhi, and Kon! Kon!, the latter is the most Bloodywood-sounding? It even has a Tumbi again. I would have been way more receptive to Nu Delhi, had it contained more of this cultural musical identity. So I'm glad this exists. It just feels a little like the wrong of the two songs ended up on each album. Other than that nit-pick, I'm pretty much where you are. It's a super solid effort. I enjoy the Poppy collab (though I'm still waiting for a Grimes one). I will just never be able to get into Polyphia's over-engineered songwriting. It has always been technically impressive, but at the same time always failed to resonate with me emotionally. That doesn't change here, but it doesn't detract from the overall enjoyment I get out of the album.
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