"Song 3", BABYMETAL's collab with Slaughter to Prevail has now an official music video. The song already featured in BM's latest European 'live' concerts, so I've heard it once before via fancam.
This track has the most consistent harsh vocals for BM, giving MOMO her time to shine. Coincidentally, it was released on the same day as Hanabie's "Spicy Queen", so we have two girl bands dropping heavy beats and harsh vocals almost simultaneously. What a treat!
Anyway... "Song 3" gives the attention to MOA and MOMO, being composed more like a cheerleader chant with repeated counts of "ichi, ni, san", or "one, two, three". SU still gets some melody time, but it's less prominent a feature here.
Between the collab with Poppy and this one, rage seems to be the common theme. With "From Me to U", it's about calming your inner rage, while embracing and acknowledging its legitimacy. But with "Song 3", it's more about confronting the things that enrage us, say like pressure, failure, and perhaps even literal bullying. The count of "ichi, ni, san" at first brings focus when we're feeling overwhelmed, then becomes a discipline for training to overcome, and finally it's a countout, having KO'ed the adversary. What's interesting is that winning doesn't involve actual violence, but rather speaking up and asserting oneself with confidence.
I don't know StP at all, but they're wearing Oni and fox masks, so perhaps masks is their thing? The lead singer shows his face, though. I'm assuming that he represents the bullied boy now grown up and finally can't take it no more. He enrolls in BM's school of Karate where BM plays multiple roles as cheerleaders, trainers, referees, and the award presenter. StP's music is both discordant and heavy, creating the tension and overall stressful atmosphere which the growls make even more oppressive. But BM's melodic lines and lighthearted delivery still cuts through the tension, bringing hope and determination to rise to the challenge.
BM have always been genre-bending queens, but this is the first time they've taken on their own metal space as a genre and given us something of a more expected metal sound throughout the song. Not dance, not pop, just straight up metal -- with a little lemon zest for flavour. Heck, yes!
