BABYMETAL–the Acclaimed All-Girl-Fronted Japanese Heavy Metal/Teen-Pop Hybrid Group–Signs with RAL/Sony Music Entertainment; Debut Self-Titled Album Being Re-Released in U.S.

DT: APRIL 9, 2015

FM: AARON FETERL/MIKE GOWEN, MSO PR

BABYMETAL
—THE ACCLAIMED ALL-GIRL-FRONTED JAPANESE HEAVY METAL/TEEN-POP HYBRID GROUP—
SIGNS WITH
RAL/SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT

DEBUT SELF-TITLED ALBUM TO BE RE-RELEASED IN THE U.S.

2015 WORLD TOUR KICKS OFF MAY 9 IN MEXICO CITY
U.S. DATES INCLUDE HOUSE OF BLUES CHICAGO (5/14) AND
ROCK ON THE RANGE FESTIVAL IN COLUMBUS, OH (5/16)

(L-R): YUIMETAL, SU-METAL and MOAMETAL

“The most exciting thing that I’d seen recently”
– Slash, February, 2015

BABYMETAL–the Japan-based all-girl-fronted “Kawaii Metal” (mix of J-Pop Idol and Heavy Metal) group–has signed with RAL/Sony Music Entertainment for the U.S. release of their 2014 critically acclaimed self-titled debut album. The album’s re-release will feature two bonus tracks (cover art and tracklisting below) and be available digitally on Tuesday, May 12 and physically on Tuesday, June 16.

Says Bill Richards, VP of Marketing at RAL/Sony Music Entertainment: “After witnessing the band’s sold-out New York show, we knew we wanted to be involved. The core metal fans and metal press seem to get BABYMETAL, which shows how the language of music transcends boundaries. They hit all the entertainment buttons and are really fun to watch.”

Since forming in 2010, BABYMETAL–the young trio of 17-year-old SU-METAL (Vocal, Dance) and 15-year-olds YUIMETAL (Scream, Dance)and MOAMETAL (Scream, Dance), backed by a four-piece band packing a heavy metal arsenal–have already achieved two major debut singles: “IJIME, DAME, ZETTA!” and “MEGISTUNE,” both of which ranked in the Top 10 Oricon Chart in Japan. Their first studio album BABYMETAL also earned the #1 spot on Japan’s album chart and Billboard’s World Album Chart. The official live music video for their debut album’s lead single “Gimme Chocolate!!” has garnered over 24.5 million views on YouTube. Click here to check out the video. Now the band will re-release their chart-topping debut album via RAL/Sony Music Entertainment.

2014 saw BABYMETAL headline numerous sold-out shows from New York to London, including the 20,000 capacity Saitama Super Arena in Japan. They performed at major festivals in multiple countries such as the UK’s massive Sonisphere in front of 65,000 festival-goers and supported Lady Gaga on her “Artrave: The Artpop Ball” tour. The band will gear up for an equally busy 2015 when they kick off their “THE DARK KNIGHTS BEGIN” WORLD TOUR 2015 on May 9 in Mexico City (full tour itinerary below). U.S. tour dates included a special one-off headlining show on May 14 at House Of Blues in Chicago, IL, followed by a festival appearance on May 16 at Rock on the Range in Columbus, OH. BILLBOARD.com’s live review of BABYMETAL’s 11/4 debut New York concert noted, ”The girls slayed New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom… playing a high-energy set…packed full of non-stop singing, dancing and shredding.”

BABYMETAL’s “THE DARK KNIGHTS BEGIN” WORLD TOUR 2015 dates here:

DATE		VENUE	LOCATION
Sat	5/9	Circo Volador	Mexico City, Mexico
Tue	5/12	Danforth Music Hall	Toronto, Canada
Thu	5/14	House of Blues	Chicago, IL
Sat	5/16	Rock of the Range	Columbus, OH
Fri	5/29	ROCKAVARIA	Munich, Germany
Sat	5/30	ROCK IM REVIER	Gelsenkirchen, Germany
Mon	6/1	La Laiterie	Strasbourg, France
Wed	6/3	X-TRA	Zurich, Switzerland
Fri	6/5	Estragon Club	Bologna, Italy
Sat	6/6	ROCK IN VIENNA	Vienna, Austria
Sun	6/21	MAKUHARI MESSE	Chiba, Japan

Album cover art

Tracklisting for re-release of BABYMETAL here:

BABYMETAL DEATH
Megitsune
Gimme Chocolate!!
line!
Akatsuki
Doki Doki ☆ Morning
Onedari Daisakusen
Song 4
Uki Uki ★ Midnight
Catch me if you can
Rondo of Nightmare
Head Bangeeeeerrrrr!!!!!
Ijime, Dame, Zettai

*Road of Resistance
*Gimme Chocolate!!-(Live at O2 Academy Brixton, London)

*Bonus tracks

Above: Tour poster for 2015 world tour

Here’s a sample of the praise BABYMETAL has received so far:

“…the most polarizing band of 2014.”
– LOUDWIRE.com, January 7, 2015

“… embraces metal’s most enduring and endearing tenets — fantasy, escapism, theatrics, bombast and sheer volume — and that solid, skillfully played metal foundation cleverly grounds a wildly eclectic sound that incorporates elements from trance to synth-pop, to dubstep, to reggae, to J-pop at its most manic and overtly ‘cute.’ It’s also brilliantly self-referential, the group’s manga-style fantasy storyline involving some wonderful parodies of metal’s ‘Big Four’ of Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax, and Megadeth.”
– Adrien Begrand, NPR, September 4, 2014

“Their songs are a delirious mix of thrash, death and power metal with candy-pink J-pop melodies spread like frosting atop all the violence. Not even the most dedicated black-metal purist could deny that Babymetal’s tracks are played with the same skill and ferocity as their genre contemporaries…Babymetal is perhaps the genre’s most brilliant and welcomed send-up yet…Babymetal is just about the only metal group sticking with the mission of the genre — freaking people out and putting on a hell of a spectacle.”
– August Brown, LOS ANGELES TIMES, July 29, 2014

“Musically, they are as heavy and sharp as any modern metal band. Vocally?… is so deliciously alien and peculiar, not to mention delivered with joyous enthusiasm… there is something very clever and lovable about Babymetal’s back-story and the mystique that surrounds those who put the music together… the whole thing works so brilliantly because it has side-stepped all the usual considerations in favour of the wholesale creation of a unique and fully formed world of its own.”
– Dom Lawson, METAL HAMMER, September 2014

“I think is important to acknowledge evolutionary steps in Metal. Early innovators and pioneers in many genres were at first questioned or even mocked and ridiculed. From all the way back to where two nice, quiet Jewish boys from New York put on make-up and breathed fire and spit blood (Kiss), to space monsters from the Antaractica (GWAR), to Italian guys mixing 80’s Speed Metal with Hollywood film-score soundtracks (Rhapsody), to pagan Finnish dudes mixing folk music with Metal (Korpiklaani), there have been important bands and benchmarks where we can almost track a new sub-genre back to one single band or point in time. BabyMetal is one of those evolutionary steps…I believe this is an important album.
– JP Wood, METAL-RULES.com, June 2014

“Babymetal are the next big thing!…Babymetal are absolutely incredible! I haven’t been this excited about a new metal act in a looooong time. I was initially completely baffled and even averse to the concept, but I’ve come to embrace it over time and you should too.”
– Vince Neilstein, METALSUCKS.net, July 18, 2014

“…they are unlike any other band you have ever been exposed to ever before. They combine…high-concept…Asian pop with instrumentation that wouldn’t sound out of place on the slickest record Slipknot never made. By all human logic, this shouldn’t work in the least, but it does, completely and unequivocally, through both the machinations of the J-Pop machine as well as the sheer force of their own weird.”
– Drew Millard, NOISEY.com, March 4, 2014

For more information on BABYMETAL, visit:

WEBSITE
FACEBOOK (530K+ Likes)
TWITTER (124+ Followers)
INSTAGRAM (18.7K+ Followers)
YOUTUBE (70+ Million Video Views)