First things first, here’s a fun fact about the Tasmanian devil: it delivers the strongest bite-for-size of any mammal in the world. Now, what do you get when you feed such a creature a hefty dose of vintage FAITH NO MORE and some djenty polyrhythms? Well, you get one of the best damn bands to disappoint you by breaking up. Yeah, I’m talking about the Australian AD/HD-genre-blenders, TWELVE FOOT NINJA. Not only were all of their studio albums pure gold, but after seeing their first and only live performance in Helsinki, on October 17th, 2017, at Tavastia, it’s safe to say that the band sure delivered an inhumanly strong bite-for-size live as well. As luck would have it, I got to review their last studio album “Vengeance” in 2021 for Tuonela Magazine, and then, a year later, they announced an “indefinite hiatus,” which later changed into an official retirement from the metal scene altogether right after the release of an acoustic endeavor entitled “Mutant Dreams and Face Transplants” in 2024. Last year, the now-defunct band also pulled their music from all streaming services. Now, aren’t I glad that I bought their whole back catalog up to their haunting 2016 endeavor back in the day! I woulda purchased “Vengeance” upon its release, as well, but due to the pandemic, you couldn’t order anything to Finland from Down Under; now, after the global shit-show is no longer fucking things up, it’s been nigh impossible to trace a physical copy of that particular album on those online music bazaars for some reason! Their last proper studio album was released on August 26th, 2016, via Volkanic Music, under the title “Outlier,” and it remains a mammoth selection of unrelenting musical madness of the highest caliber – like “Angel Dust” by FAITH NO MORE, but sprinkled with a liberal dose of a tad more modern and progressive metal frosting. I’m not pulling the MR. BUNGLE card here, because, as crazy as the music gets, it remains remarkably more coherent; the band was not trying to squeeze a dozen different genres in one song, maybe just half a dozen. So, there’s a difference.
The hilarious lead single, “One Hand Killing,” opens the album with a bang. I was introduced to the band’s weird magic through their previous album, “Silent Machine,” released in 2012, especially the song “Coming For You”, which punched me right in the face with a filthy cocktail of bossa nova, disco, and banging metal riffs. This banging new single hit a familiar nerve right off the bat, its hilarious music video, in particular. A song mixing EARTH, WIND & FIRE and groovy, djentish riffs was something I was kinda expecting from this bunch – and still, this song hit harder than almost anything on the previous album; the riffs have more bite and the production, overall, is a tad more polished, bringing all those small nuances to the forefront much better. Unsurprisingly, the lead single was a good omen for the album release to follow.
The next couple of songs offered little by way of novelty to the band’s longtime fans: the funky grooves of “Sick” and somewhat grunge-tinged alt-metal of “Invincible” sound exactly like the bangers on “Silent Machine.” The first verse in the latter might even have some subtle references to RADIOHEAD – I mean, on top of the acoustic guitar, vocalist Nik “Kin Etik” Barker sings, “This isn’t happening,” repeatedly, in a remarkable Thom Yorke-like manner, almost resonating with the air of “How to Disappear Completely” from 2000’s “Kid A.” Given the trickster nature of this bunch, I would assume details such as this were highly intentional. Does humor belong to music? Well, if you pull it off like this, then – hell, yeah! TWELVE FOOT NINJA must have been one of the funniest bands ever, but still, they sure as hell didn’t half-ass the musical side of things: the previous album was an “All killer, no filler!” affair altogether. This new album followed suit right from the beginning. While these first few tracks offer no surprises, they are still Bangers with a capital B. Then, the fourth track, “Oxygen,” turned out to be something substantially more mind-melting; mixing contemporary jazz flourishes, beefy alt-rock riffs, and even ska rhythms, the song is arguably the best damn thing the band ever crafted, in my books! The lyrics are surprisingly mature – for this bunch, anyway – and the jazz break delivers a blow to the head like a ton of bricks, what with those haunting Rhodes lines and a short but absolutely smashing guitar solo.
That said, if “Oxygen” turned out to be the band’s best song ever, the next two tracks did not fall far behind. First, “Collateral” delivers a body blow, both musically and lyrically. Those outrageous music videos of the band’s silliest tracks had probably conditioned me to expect only funny lyrics from this band, even though the lyrics on “Silent Machine” weren’t even exclusively of that sort. I guess it plays well with the band’s ninja theme that some of the lyrics resonate with an almost Zen Buddhist air, and while “Collateral” is not the best example, the lyrics wax poetically existential, and the closing line hits the nail on the head, in this respect, when it goes, “When enough is enough, not enough is too much.” The oriental motif that repeats amidst the beefy guitar riffs only further cements this impression. Then, “Post Mortem” is basically a crash course in the Buddhist idea of existing after death. Not only is the song a banging riffathon spiced with some funk and flamenco flourishes, but it also rolls out some of the best one-liners I’ve heard in a metal song. I would love to put the part on repeat where the lyrics go, “You’ll learn every time you fall, better to give everything or nothing at all.” If the previous album offered a real cornucopia of awesomeness in this respect, on this album, the band went to eleven.
The winning streak continues with “Point of You,” which unfolds like a smashing mixture of the 1970s-tinted jazz-rock fusion and modern metal. I guess the band must have been full of EARTH, WIND & FIRE fanbois. Then again, it’s always nice to realize that I’m not the only one to have albums from both EW&F and MESHUGGAH in my record collection. Lyrically, the oriental esotericism is softly touched upon, again, with phrases such as “A universe inside you, within your fleeting glance, a vast and stunning expanse, reveals the unspoken truth, the all-in-all inside you.” I guess these blokes took the ninja stuff seriously, after all.
And speaking of Oriental flourishes, “Monsoon” fires hard on all cylinders, rolling out slinky percussion rhythms in this vein, reinforced with the main motif that’s full-on flying-carpet material – sort of like MYRATH or even ORPHANED LAND, but only more djenty. Yeah, sure, neither of these bands would squeeze a nice nu-jazz-esque break in the song. There was (and is) something endearingly 1990-ish in this wild mixture of styles, and having spent my delicate adolescent years in that particular decade, these songs hit home like a wrecking ball. Maybe we had something fishy in our tap water back in the day. So far, the album has rolled out only bangers, one after another, but there are still two more tracks to go…
Surprisingly enough, “Adios” turned out to be one of the band’s most mature songs. In a way, it’s like a follow-up to the song, “Ain’t That A Bitch,” on the previous album; both of these songs deal with the topic of breaking up, but here, the lyrics are substantially less pissed-off, and overall, the song is more atmospheric and more metal. It almost seems as though “Ain’t That A Bitch” was written in the heat of the moment, in the middle of a messy divorce perhaps, while this song was written after some time had passed since all that emotional tumult. Then again, the previous album was not all about making funny one-liners and musical armpit farts – some of the songs had pretty thought-provoking lyrics, actually. The same streak continues on this 2016 selection.
Finally, the album is wrapped up by the band’s signature freak show of a track, “Dig For Bones.” On the closer, the band is holding nothing back, but hits you across the head with a tight riffathon, which is suddenly interrupted by a Latin jazz break. Yeah, of course. It’s almost as if the band wanted to reassure the listener that they weren’t getting all too serious, after all. The song even features some nice Nintendo boss-battle synth bleeps. Pardon my French adjectives, but what a great fucking song to close a great fucking album! Listening to this banger selection now, 10 years after its release, it not-so-gently reminds me how much it sucks that this band does not exist anymore. Oh, but wait…
The rumor has it that the band’s founding guitarist, Steve “Stevic” MacKay, is planning a comeback for TWELVE FOOT NINJA with a brand new lineup! I’m pretty stoked to hear what new shenanigans he’s up to! There’s never too much music that flirts with jazz, funk, and metal in equal measure.
Written by Jani Lehtinen
Tracklist
- One Hand Killing
- Sick
- Invincible
- Oxygen
- Collateral
- Post Mortem
- Point of You
- Monsoon
- Adios
- Dig For Bones
Lineup
Nik Barker – vocals
Steve MacKay – guitars
Shane Russell – drums
Rohan Hayes – guitars
Damon McKinnon – bass
Label
Volcanic Music
