BABYMETAL To Release New Album This Year

Japanese pop metal act BABYMETAL has announced that it will release a new album later this year. The band will also perform at Yokohama Arena on June 28-29 as well as at Portmesse Nagoya on July 6-7. These Japanese performances will mark the beginning of BABYMETAL's new chapter.

BABYMETAL's upcoming album will be the follow-up to 2016's "Metal Resistance". Right after the release of this second disc, they performed at London's prominent venue SSE Arena, Wembley and became the first Japanese act to have ever headlined there, breaking the all-time merchandising sales record at the venue. BABYMETAL also had successful back-to-back performances at the massive Tokyo Dome thereafter, playing to 110,000 people over two nights.

"Metal Resistance" debuted at No. 15 on the official U.K. chart, the highest rank for a Japanese artist in recorded history. The album was very well-received in all other territories as well, including another record-breaking position for a Japanese artist in the U.S. with a No. 39 position on the Billboard chart.

Last fall, BABYMETAL digitally released a new song called "Starlight". It marked the rebirth of the band in which Su-Metal and Moametal form the core.

BABYMETAL spent all of 2018 touring without Yuimetal, who was formerly one of the members of the group's core trio. She later exited the band, explaining in a statement that she would go on to pursue a solo career as Mizuno Yu.

Over the last few years, BABYMETAL has established itself as the most globally successful J-pop group of the past decade.

The band describes itself as kawaii metal, kawaii meaning "cute" in Japanese.