BABYMETAL just unleashed their new album, THE OTHER ONE, on Friday (March 24th). In conjunction with its release, members SU-METAL and MOAMETAL took some time to answer a handful of questions from Heavy Consequence.
THE OTHER ONE is the Japanese pop-metal band’s fourth studio LP overall, following up 2019’s METAL GALAXY. The new effort is a concept album that came about when BABYMETAL were “sealed” from the world after they completed 10 years as a band. The album details a “restoration project [that] began to recover the BABYMETAL we never knew existed within a virtual world called the METALVERSE.” Each song on the album represents 10 separate parallel worlds that BABYMETAL discovered within the METALVERSE.
Beyond the concept, BABYMETAL continue to evolve musically, incorporating new sounds into repertoire, including a darker progressive direction on a few tunes, and an alt-metal vibe on other tracks.
BABYMETAL kicked off promotion of the new album with a pair of January shows in Chiba, Japan. They will play two shows in Yokohama on April 1st and 2nd before supporting Sabaton’s UK/European tour beginning April 14th.
So far, their only scheduled US dates are appearances at the festivals Louder Than Life in September and Aftershock in October.
Below, SU-METAL and MOAMETAL offer insight into THE OTHER ONE, how the pandemic affected the recording of the album, and their plans for further shows in North America.
Please tell us about the new album THE OTHER ONE, and how each song fits into the overall theme?
SU-METAL: The overall theme of this concept album THE OTHER ONE is that is portrays the BABYMETAL we never knew existed. At first, you might not recognize the music as BABYMETAL because compared to our past works, it’s more dark and mature but we haven’t changed our style of experimenting with the combination of various genres as well as including comical earworms.
What was your experience like in the METALVERSE?
SU-METAL: In the world of the METALVERSE, we collaborate with our past selves, sit on a royal throne, see our future selves…we experience a whole lot range of things!