Bands Like Babymetal

If you love Babymetal, start with Sleep Token, Bad Omens, I Prevail, Motionless in White, and Dayseeker, modern acts that weld pop-sized melody to real metal weight, exactly the trick Babymetal built a career on. Below are 11 bands to try, each with one track to start.

Babymetal works because of a collision, not a compromise. Su-metal's clear, trained lead vocal rides over the Kami Band's session-grade alternative metal, with Moametal's and Momometal's screams cutting across the top. It's idol-pop melody and metal muscle in the same three minutes, a formula they've refined from the 2014 self-titled debut and Metal Resistance (2016) through Metal Galaxy (2019) and The Other One (2023). "Gimme Chocolate!!" is still the clearest single-song proof: a bubblegum hook that keeps getting body-slammed by a breakdown, and neither side wins.

So what actually makes a band feel "like Babymetal"? It comes down to three moves, and most of the picks below pull off at least two. The first is genre fusion with a straight face, splicing pop, electronic or classical ideas into metal without treating it as a joke. The second is the melodic-versus-heavy tug of war, a chorus you'd hum in the shower welded to riffs that could level a room. The third is theater, treating the live show and the visual world as part of the music rather than decoration. The list runs roughly from the closest fusion matches down to the heavier, showier acts, so start near the top if you want the nearest thing to Babymetal and work down as your tolerance for weight climbs.

For the genre-fusion: Sleep Token

No modern band chases the Babymetal instinct harder than Sleep Token. They fold R&B, pop, piano balladry and djent-weight riffs into single songs, and they never apologize for the melody. Su-metal fans who love how a Babymetal chorus can turn from cute to crushing in one bar will recognize the move instantly, because Sleep Token do it constantly, dropping from a hushed falsetto into a full breakdown and back inside a single verse. The masks, the anonymous frontman Vessel and the invented religious mythology are a bonus for anyone who came to Babymetal for the stagecraft as much as the songs. They're also the band on this list whose fanbase overlaps most with Babymetal's right now, which tells you something.

Start with "The Summoning," the track that broke them wide open. If you want the softer on-ramp, "Alkaline" is the gateway most people land on first. Try Sleep Token.

For the crossover hook: Bad Omens

Bad Omens went from underground metalcore to arena-filler on the back of songs that are as catchy as anything on pop radio but still bite. That's the Babymetal blueprint in a different accent: hooks big enough to go viral, heaviness real enough to satisfy the pit, and synth textures that make the whole thing feel modern rather than retro. Their breakout even climbed the same way a Babymetal clip does, one social share at a time, until a song that started in the metal underground was suddenly everywhere. If you like that Babymetal can sit next to pop on a playlist without flinching, Bad Omens live in exactly that space.

Start with "Just Pretend," their platinum-certified biggest hit. Try Bad Omens.

For the clean-and-scream trade-off: I Prevail

Babymetal's whole vocal design is contrast: a soaring lead against harsh screams. I Prevail run the same engine, splitting duties between a clean singer and a screamer so the melody and the aggression argue with each other inside one song, often trading lines back and forth mid-chorus. If the tension between Su-metal's voice and the screams behind her is your favorite part, this is a direct hit. They also share Babymetal's willingness to chase a genuinely big pop chorus, then earn it back with a breakdown, so nothing feels soft. Their album Trauma is the one that nailed the balance.

Start with "Hurricane," their most-streamed track, or "Bow Down" if you want the heavier, Grammy-nominated side first. Try I Prevail.

For the theater and the electronics: Motionless in White

Motionless in White pair horror-movie theatrics with industrial electronics bolted onto metalcore, and they've slowly grown a real melodic streak across their run. The visual commitment alone, the makeup, the gothic staging, the fully realized aesthetic, will land with anyone who follows Babymetal for the spectacle. But it's the way they let a clean, hook-driven chorus sit inside a heavy song that makes them a genuine sonic match and not just an aesthetic one. They're proof that a band can go all-in on theater and still write the melody that gets stuck in your head, which is the exact tightrope Babymetal walk every album.

Start with "Masterpiece," their first No.1 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Airplay chart. Try Motionless in White.

For the emotional melody: Dayseeker

Dayseeker are the pick for the side of Babymetal that goes for the heart, the big, aching melodies that carry a song more than the riffs do. Vocalist Rory Rodriguez has one of the most expressive clean voices in the scene, a soulful, R&B-tinged delivery that floats over heaviness without ever letting it bury the tune. If you replay Babymetal for the melodies more than the breakdowns, start here. They lean synth-pop and atmospheric where Babymetal lean idol-pop, but the instinct is identical: make the emotional payload land through melody first, then let the guitars hit harder because you weren't braced for it.

Start with "Sleeptalk," their biggest and most-streamed song. Try Dayseeker.

For the beauty-and-brutality contrast: Deftones

Deftones more or less wrote the modern rulebook on making metal that's gorgeous and violent at once, dreamy textures one second, a wall of downtuned guitar the next. Chino Moreno's voice can croon and shriek within the same song, which is the same push-pull Babymetal build into their arrangements. They live in that dynamic space, swinging from delicate to devastating without warning, and once you hear it you can't unhear it in Babymetal's quieter passages either. Deftones are also the deepest well on this list, with a catalog stretching back decades, so there's years of listening waiting once you're hooked.

Start with "Change (In the House of Flies)," the gateway most people never leave. Try Deftones.

For the genre-hopping ambition: Avenged Sevenfold

Avenged Sevenfold refuse to stay in one lane. Across their catalog they lurch from metalcore to hard rock to prog to full orchestral swings, and they treat every album like a production event rather than a set of songs. That restlessness maps neatly onto Babymetal's own habit of gluing power metal, EDM, thrash and idol-pop into one tracklist and daring you to keep up. Both bands are showmen first, built for the biggest stage they can get, and both reward the listener who wants ambition over genre purity. If Babymetal's genre-hopping is the thing you love, A7X scratch the same itch on a Western template.

Start with "Nightmare," the anthem that made them stadium-sized, then dig into the weirder corners. Try Avenged Sevenfold.

For the heavy theater: Slipknot

Slipknot are the masked, nine-strong wall of noise that Babymetal openly admire, they've named Slipknot among their favorite bands ("I really like Slipknot," they said in a 2025 interview). On paper the sound is far heavier than Babymetal, but the shared DNA is real: coordinated personas, matching uniforms, a show built as a ritual rather than a gig, and a knack for burying a genuine hook inside brutal music. Songs like "Duality" and "Psychosocial" prove Slipknot can write a chorus as sticky as anything, they just wrap it in more violence. If Babymetal are your gateway drug into heavier territory, Slipknot are the logical next step up the ladder.

Start with "Duality," the mosh-pit classic. Try Slipknot.

For the anthemic clean vocal: Disturbed

Disturbed built an empire on one thing Babymetal also prize: a commanding lead vocal you can sing back at full volume. David Draiman's voice is the hook, wrapped in chunky, groove-heavy alt-metal that's engineered for arenas from the first bar. Fans who love how a Babymetal chorus plants itself in your skull will find the same instant-recall melodies here, just delivered with a snarl instead of a smile. Disturbed are less about texture and more about impact, every song built around a moment designed to detonate live, which is a value Babymetal share even if their palette is brighter.

Start with "Down with the Sickness," the one everyone knows, or "The Sound of Silence" cover if you want to hear the range. Try Disturbed.

For the groove-metal muscle: Five Finger Death Punch

Five Finger Death Punch weld blunt, groove-metal heaviness to unapologetically melodic, radio-shaped choruses, heavy verses, huge singalong hooks, no shame about either. It's a coarser, more macho version of the same balancing act Babymetal pull off, and it's built for the exact same reason: to work in a packed room and leave everyone hoarse. Come for the riffs, stay for the choruses you'll be shouting by the second listen. They're the most conventional pick here, but if what you want from Babymetal is that specific rush of heavy-plus-hook with zero pretension, FFDP deliver it by the truckload.

Start with "Wrong Side of Heaven," their most affecting hit. Try Five Finger Death Punch.

For the musicianship: Tool

Here's the left-field pick. If what really grabs you about Babymetal is the Kami Band, the ludicrously skilled session players who make the whole idol-metal fusion actually shred, then Tool are the destination. They're the standard-bearers for alternative metal that rewards close listening: odd time signatures, hypnotic build-ups, a rhythm section operating on another plane entirely. There are no pop hooks to grab onto here, so this is the deep-end recommendation, put it on with headphones and no distractions. But the through-line is real: Babymetal's fusion only works because the musicianship underneath it is deadly serious, and Tool are the purest example of that principle on the list. Less pop, far more patience, all payoff.

Start with "Schism," the Grammy-winning entry point. Try Tool.

Where to go next

Babymetal built a bridge between worlds that were never supposed to touch, and every band above is standing somewhere on it, some closer to the pop end, some deep in the heavy. There's no single "Babymetal replacement," because the whole point of the band is that they're a collision of things that shouldn't fit. What you can do is chase whichever piece of that collision you love most. Start with Sleep Token and Bad Omens if you want the nearest match to the fusion itself. Drop into Dayseeker, Deftones or I Prevail when it's the melody carrying you. Climb toward Slipknot, Disturbed and Tool when you're ready to trade some sweetness for weight. None of them sound exactly like Babymetal, and that's the point, they each take one strand of what makes Babymetal work and pull it as far as it'll go. Follow the ones that stick on The Band Index, build out from there, and let the catalog pull you toward the next rabbit hole.