Review: BABYMETAL at Perth HPC
BABYMETAL at Perth HPC
w/ Bloodywood, Magnolia Park
Thursday, March 12, 2026
Approaching Perth HPC, the spectacle had already begun. Metal dads shepherded tiny kids in band tees through the gates, goth and Lolita silhouettes drifted through clusters of nu-metal loyalists, and somewhere in the mix were fans clearly loyal to Bloodywood and others waiting specifically for BABYMETAL. It was a demographic collage that mirrored the curation itself—cross-cultural, generationally fluid, and a reminder that metal has long since spilt beyond its once narrow tribe.
Inside, the venue thrummed before the first act even appeared, bass vibrations rattling fixtures while the crowd settled into what felt like arena-gig-lite comfort. With all three acts touring 2025 releases, the evening also carried the unmistakable scent of commerce. But if this was a commercial exercise, it was one leaning unapologetically into hybridity.
Florida openers Magnolia Park feel distinctly post-2020—the sound of listening habits shaped by streaming algorithms rather than scenes. Goth imagery and vampire aesthetics fused with pop-punk hooks, R&B-styled vocals and murky trap beats, punctuated by flashes of thrash guitar—think The Weeknd by way of Bring Me The Horizon.
For new single Dangerous, frontman Joshua Roberts briefly occupied the stage alone before the band crashed in behind him, sliding between rap cadence and smooth melodic phrasing. When they invited the pit to open “just for the ladies”, what followed was less mosh than collective shimmy—a reminder that when macho posturing is briefly removed, a pit actually resembles a dance floor. Boundary-shifting in intention, slightly awkward in execution, but a small signal that metal crowds are evolving beyond their usual testosterone economy.
With Bloodywood’s arrival, the temperature shifted immediately—a fully formed collision of worlds.
The New Delhi sextet entered the stage piece by piece—drummer first, then a kaftan-clad percussionist with dhol drum slung across his chest, followed by guitarist and bassist presenting like soldiers of metal. Dual vocalists burst in vivid colour against the sea of black uniforms. Where Magnolia Park had flattened genre differences, Bloodywood ripped them open.
Opening with Gaddaar, the melding of nu-metal riffing and Punjabi melodic traditions detonated across the arena. Rapper Raoul Kerr prowled the stage like a revolutionary hypeman, while vocalist Jayant Bhadula countered with soaring, Bollywood-inflected melodies. Between them, guitars pummelled and the dhol fused with the drum kit to create rhythms that felt familiar yet unmistakably their own.
Bloodywood have clearly grown up on a diet of Western metal but refuse to simply reproduce it. Instead they metabolise—filtering riffs and breakdowns through Indian melodic traditions. The sliding ornamentations of raga phrasing threaded through the music, opening melodic spaces Western scales rarely allow.
Then came the rupture. Before launching into Dana Dan, Kerr explained the song confronts rape culture in India. The opening line—“I put a fist through the face of a rapist/ and yeah, I tape this”—landed like a slap after Magnolia Park’s polished genre-smoothing. Suddenly the politics were explicit. Art here wasn’t just fusion; it was confrontation.
And yet even confrontation gets absorbed into spectacle. The crowd roared approval, fists pumping in unison. It raised a familiar paradox: when rebellion becomes performance, does it still ignite change—or simply give us somewhere convenient to discharge our outrage?
By the time Bloodywood closed with Machi Bhasad (Expect a Riot), the arena was crouching en masse before erupting upward on cue. Metal may not be huge in India, as Kerr reminded us, but Bloodywood have found a way to make the genre speak a global language.
If Bloodywood thrived on kinetic rebellion, BABYMETAL answered with ritual and spectacle in equal measure.
The enormous screen (finally) flickered to life with cosmic mythology: “A long time ago in a heavy metal galaxy far, far away…” Fox God lore unfurled like a strange hybrid of anime prophecy and sacred scripture before the masked Kami Band assembled in the shadows.
Then the trio emerged—Su-metal, Moametal and Momometal—moving slowly, deliberately, like priestesses entering ceremony. Almost immediately the fox hand gestures began appearing across the arena—fingers split in BABYMETAL’s stylised metal salute—first from the trio themselves, then rippling outward through the crowd.
From the opening cheerleader-metal chant of BABYMETAL DEATH, their paradox was unmistakable: sugar-sweet vocals colliding with relentless riffs; choreography precise and disciplined, yet minus the lacquered cool of K-pop. Early classic Doki Doki ☆ Morning triggered cheers of recognition, its hyper-cute vocals slicing through the metal barrage with gleeful defiance. Newer material, from me to u layered dystopian visuals behind the trio’s pristine harmonies—pop optimism under siege.
BABYMETAL’s genius lies in their refusal of rock’s obsession with authenticity. Where Western metal may still cling to myths of “realness”, BABYMETAL embrace artifice without apology—choreography, costumes, digital collaborators, and anime mythology. Artificiality becomes the aesthetic.
And yet the music hits hard enough to silence purists.
Tracks like BxMxC leant into quasi-rap rhythms, Su-metal’s voice processed into something otherworldly while the Kami Band hammered out relentless double-kick patterns. METALI!! nodded towards traditional Japanese instrumentation via shamisen, ritual gestures replacing novelty with something that felt genuinely cultural rather than decorative.
Throughout it all, the trio commanded the arena with playful authority—never merely decorating the music but directing it. The emotional centre arrived with Monochrome, thousands of phone lights forming a shimmering constellation. Then came the gleeful absurdity of Gimme Chocolate!!, the night’s most mischievous reminder that metal can still laugh at itself while the pit churns.
Yet the night also revealed the limits of its own hybridity. Both BABYMETAL and Bloodywood now share collaborative tracks—most notably Bekhauf and Kon! Kon!—but neither band appeared on stage together to perform them. Instead, guest vocals arrived via backing tracks and video projections, the collaborators remaining just out of reach somewhere behind the production curtain. It was a small but noticeable absence. In a show built so strongly on the spectacle of cultural collision, the chance to see those worlds physically meet on stage felt tantalisingly close—and curiously withheld.
By the encore, Headbangeeeeerrrrr!!!!! turned the floor into a devotional ritual, a “We’re Not Worthy” pit unfolding in the centre of the arena, before the final anthem, Road of Resistance, closed the night like the climax of a particularly explosive anime saga.
Metal may once have prided itself on purity. But nights like this reveal a different future—one where traditions collide, identities blur, and spectacle replaces orthodoxy. Whether that hybridity represents liberation or simply a new form of cultural packaging is another question entirely. For now, though, the Fox God reigns.
CAT LANDRO