BABYMETAL - METAL FORTH
- Samuel Stevens
- Aug 5, 2025
- 3 min read
After fifteen years of fusing J-pop effervescence with brutal metal intensity, BABYMETAL’s new album METAL FORTH arrives like a sonic meteor from a higher dimension. Building on the mythology and musical experimentation of 2019’s METAL GALAXY and the conceptual multiverse of 2023’s THE OTHER ONE, on August 8, 2025, via Capitol Records, the band returns with METAL FORTH, and it is perhaps the band’s most cohesive and thrilling evolution yet. True to its name—“beyond metal”—this album pushes genre boundaries with fearless abandon and global flair, bolstered by a roster of high-octane collaborators who reflect BABYMETAL’s ever-expanding reach.
Opening with “from me to u,” featuring Poppy, the album kicks off with a warped lullaby that builds into glitchy industrial pop-metal chaos. Both artists have long danced between sugar-sweetness and sonic savagery, and their pairing feels cosmic—an eerie, shimmering celebration of duality. Poppy’s ethereal whispers meld with SU-METAL’s piercing clarity as the track careens into a sinister breakdown, setting the tone for the experimental firestorm ahead.
Following is the track, “RATATATA” with Electric Callboy, and it's as chaotic as its title suggests—a rave-metal anthem that weaponizes neon synths and eurobeat with chugging riffs and over-the-top aggression. It’s party metal at its most unhinged, yet undeniably catchy, and plays like a mosh pit inside an arcade. Similarly, “Song 3” with Russian deathcore band Slaughter to Prevail is an outright bloodbath—a feral, skull-crushing track where MOMOMETAL’s playful chants contrast wildly with frontman Alex Terrible’s hell-summoning growls.
The genre-hopping continues with the track “Kon! Kon!” which features India-based metallers Bloodywood, a track that weaves bhangra rhythms and traditional instrumentation into a towering, riotous celebration. The result is one of the most culturally rich and rhythmically compelling songs BABYMETAL has ever released—a global call to arms. In contrast, “KxAxWxAxIxI” is a mechanical stomp through cyber-metal territory, its title acting like a corrupted AI mantra. It’s cold, synthetic, and hypnotic—a brief but unnerving interlude into the album’s more abstract side.
“Sunset Kiss” with Polyphia is a total sonic curveball—a dreamy, math-rock lullaby drenched in clean, jazzy guitar acrobatics. It’s one of the softest, most intricate tracks BABYMETAL has ever attempted, and Polyphia’s signature melodic guitar wizardry provides a perfect foil for MOAMETAL’s sweetly melancholic vocal performance. It's moments like this where METAL FORTH earns its “beyond metal” descriptor in full.
Another highlight on the album comes with the track “My Queen,” a soaring epic featuring metal band Spiritbox. The track builds with cinematic flair, balancing atmospheric tension with massive, melodic choruses. Spiritbox front woman Courtney LaPlante’s clean and screaming vocals blend surprisingly well with SU-METAL’s power, and when the inevitable breakdown lands, it does so with tectonic force—a testament to both bands’ mastery of dynamics.
“Algorism” dives into retro-futurist territory with glitchy synths and a pulsating cyber-grind beat. Here, BABYMETAL leans hard into conceptual weirdness, sounding like an idol group inside the Matrix. But it's the following track, “METALI!!” featuring Tom Morello, that delivers the album’s most politically charged moment—a chaotic, riff-filled explosion of funk-metal fury where Morello’s guitar howls like a siren in the apocalypse. His guitar solo is a welcome blast of old-school rebellion in an otherwise hyper-modern soundscape.
The album closes out with “White Flame ー白炎ー,” a stunning closer that strips back the chaos for a soaring, blistering, and emotional finale in the vein of power metal. Sung primarily in Japanese, it channels both elegance and strength, echoing the themes of fire, rebirth, and transcending limits that permeate METAL FORTH. It’s a reminder that even beyond the noise, there is always a heart at the core of BABYMETAL’s world.
METAL FORTH is a genre-defying odyssey that cements BABYMETAL not just as innovators within the metal scene but as architects of an entirely new sonic universe, with no one song being the same sub-genre of metal. With dazzling production, adventurous collaborations, and the trio’s unshakable charisma, this album doesn’t just push boundaries—it vaporizes them. For a band born at the intersection of contradiction, METAL FORTH is their most confident step into the unknown.
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