BABYMETAL Shows It Can Lay Down Metal Thunder Like The Big Boys

I promise you this post won't come off looking like the Happy Days episode where Fonzie literally jumps the shark. You see, I come before you tonight to lay down the nuts and bolts of "KARATE", a single from Japanese cheek pinch worthy starlets BABYMETAL. Don't mess with these girls or Rob Zombie will knock your block off. This threesome has a tooth crunching band, The Kami Band helping them out so they don't have to do each facet of the heavy lifting. To these ears BABYMETAL sounds like it can seek out and destroy the misgivings of any North American audience it chooses to. In part that's due to how tight and menacing The Kami Band proves to be. Hideki Aoyama and Yuya Maeta have your spine in a vise grip due to the no surrender accepted flash of their drum playing. They pass out the punishment right from the start so you get no room to save your sorry skins. Add to that the three-headed guitar monster consisting of Takayoshi Ohmura, Mikio Fujioka, and ISAO. Did I forget a fiendish devil named Boh haa the brashness necessary to take his flame spitting bass and deposit it in the unprotected zones of your skull. So that's the manpower. In honest the girl power isn't too shabby either. Bear with me for this segment because it required a Japanese to English translator. Not since Loudness made '80s metal audiences guffaw have I required so much assistance figuring out what to make of an Asian act. This metal mishmash starts off with unsettling background that uneasily crawls down your back like a Japanese version of a Freddy Krueger flick. It isn't long before the full weight of the band crashes into view. Lead vocalist Suzuka Nakamoto who goes by the stage name Su-metal has an angelic range which kind of flies in the face of the genre she's representing but hardly anything to bellyache about since talent isn't something she lacks. Her English translated vow of bend not break guts ball reads as "Even if tears spill from our eyes let's confront it. The dogged determination continues with "Single-mindedly let's fight on with out fists more...with our spirits more...with making all sharper. Crunch prevails throughout the guitar segments. Frankly, it's a beautiful car wreck to behold. Three pint sized titans declaring the will to fight on even if they get sad and learn that standing has become an issue. The bridge, as you might expect from any Japanese undertaking, conducts itself in a don't you dare smile militaristic style. Not one note gets wasted on treacle. It's either in service of advancing the epic production values of the video or allowing us time to let our eyes grow ever wider because we can't believe what we're seeing or hearing. I'd be doing BABYMETAL a massive injustice if I left out the other two lead vocalists Yui Mizuno (Yuimetal) and Moa Kikuchi (Moametal). When the chorus hits full stride they make intoxicatingly captivating harmonies together. This isn't some Asian Spice Girls knock-off. Panache they bring to the knife fight in spades, clubs, diamonds, and hearts. There wasn't a penny spared to give us, the conspicuous consumers, an incredible experience we can brag to others we were part of. As the title suggests karate does get into the act, even it's slanted towards the later frames. "KARATE" unleashes its destruction in an undeniable art conscious mode. Art and ass kicking do have this knack for belonging in the same air space. Su-metal, Yuimetal, and Moametal have earned the right to let the haters malevolence slide right off them. The new album "METAL RESISTANCE" ought to be one dynamic display of smartly executed metal madness.