✦✦✧✧ BABYMETAL meets… Evanescence? Periphery? The problem with this version of the band is one of restraint. The over-the-top extremes of their first album are what I loved most about BABYMETAL. Without them, I’m just not as interested.

✦✦✧✧ It’s ironic that an album that starts with a track titled “FUTURE METAL” trades so heavily in clichéd tropes. The metal gems on here are fewer and farther between the increased reliance on J-Pop, and honestly most of this album sounds like the soundtrack to Beat Saber… but don’t sleep on truly interesting and fun tracks like “Elevator Girl” or “Night Night Burn!”

✦✦✦✧ While I won’t go so far as to call BABYMETAL victims of the sophomore slump, there is definitely a new aimless quality to the music on this album. The shredding is as ridiculous as ever, and there’s some catchy shit on here, but you’re also lacking any classic memorable moments.

★★★☆ This is the toughest review I’ve had to write all year. Yes, this is the debut album from what was ostensibly a marketing stunt, a J-Pop girl band fused Akira-style with a metal band. It shouldn’t be good, like the first DETHKLOK shouldn’t have been good. What to say, then, about the fact that this album features muscular riffs, sick solos, wall-to-wall ear candy, and two of my favorite breakdowns of 2014?