#voyager specifically year of hell. WHAT a banger.

[radramblog]

Album Discussion- Outlier

With how busy I’ve been doing uni work recently, it’s been a while since I’ve been able to let the stress out. The brief lockdown obviously hasn’t helped matters. Sometimes you just need to get the frustration out, you know? And there’s not a lot of healthy efficient ways of doing so.

Anyway so I’m just gonna relisten to this underrated metal album and talk about it for a bit, yeah?

Twelve Foot Ninja is an Australian alternative metal/djent group that makes up for having the stupidest band name I’ve ever heard by having a solid couple albums full of bangers that take a few steps off the expected path. Outlier, their sophomore work, would end up nominated for the 2016 ARIA Award for Best Hard Rock or Heavy Metal Album, but lost to Nonagon Infinity, which to be fair is one of the best rock albums of the decade so not hard to get beat by. It is unbelievably edgy, but has some twists that make it all the more worth it. Let’s get into it, shall we?

The album’s opener, One Hand Killing, makes a strong opening statement. You’ve got an extended guitar note and a fucking gong, some handclaps, and then the main instruments come in and what the fuck is the guitar doing. These stutter, almost glitchlike riffs give the track such a unique sound, and their being interspersed with these lyric sections with the claps and the bass just churning keeps it from getting too stale. The chorus is more melodic than you’d expect from the verse’s vocals, though they don’t properly kick in until the second verse to be fair. And then about two minutes in, suddenly the song is, uh. A soul track? I think that’s what’s going on there? It’s kind of a rug-pull moment the first time you hear it, and though it only lasts about 20 seconds or so it’s just so jarring- not necessarily in a bad way. The thing with Twelve Foot Ninja is their ability to weave what would otherwise sound absurd or ridiculous more naturally into what are otherwise really heavy sounding tracks, giving them this unique flavour of prog metal I haven’t really heard elsewhere (outside of some tracks on Between the Buried and Me’s Colors). The soul? jazz? bit comes back to close the song, piano having a really fun little ditty as the song fades out. I’m going to be honest, this song is the opener, and also the best track on the album in my opinion, so if you don’t like this then probably don’t keep going?

Sick opens on a much funkier line, almost Red Hot Chili Peppers-esque, before the song proper cuts in. Yeah, get used to that. This track more fluidly combines its two…genres…? I feel woefully inadequate to describe this to be honest. But the funkier elements are folded into the verses rather than being separately delineated like in One Hand Killing. The backing vocalist is doing a lot of work on this track, lots of “ooohhoahahaaaah” sorta in the background that works pretty well. The guitars are doing this thing where it feels like they ratchet between chords which sounds pretty sick. Pun not intended. Anyway.

Inivinciblllllllllllllllllllllllllllllle is again, opening heavy, falling away to a quiet acoustic bit for parts of the verse, but this song really like building up towards its choruses which said quiet bits really accentuate. It’s kinda coming in waves, self-reflective quiet turning into regret and frustration into rage- it makes the very djent bridge feel earned. The final build skipping a step into yelling but going back to the singing at the end does feel a bit poetic, like the maturity gained through the reflection is showing through. Of course, then old mate sceams INVINCIBLEEEE again, so who knows.

Oxygen opens on this really bouncy rhythm, with these little mysterious riffs, punctuated by some shredding because why the fuck not. I really wish this part of the song stuck around for longer, though I could see it overstaying its welcome. The song goes between this and more, like groove-rocky instrumentation for a fair while, busting into a big chorus like a lot of these tracks do, and following up with just this really lovely little jazzy piece. I feel like I need to re-explain, there is little to no overlap between these sections in these songs, but it doesn’t feel wrong. Even when this song is just bongos for a bit, it connects, even as that bit leads into the closing minute of the track- the heaviest it’s been so far, repeating and slowly fading out as percussion that’s been there the whole time becomes more audible and too fades away.

The fifth track , Collateral, feels like it’s having the most fun with the vocal delivery so far. There’s a flow to the lyrics in the verses, and the way the chorus has little falsetto bits in between the usual deep delivery is really fun. That’s not even getting into the instrumentation, with that, like, koto? line? They’re kinda leaning into that Japanese theme, I guess. This is as good a time as ever to mention that the album art for the previous album was a giant fuckoff shuriken and their upcoming one is apparently titled Shinobi Voyage. God, I don’t think this is racist, but I’m obviously not the one to say it. Hell of a thing to talk about on what’s probably my second favourite track here, but that’s what we signed up for, right?

Post Mortem’s verses are the closest thing to rap-rock/nu metal on the record, though the funk influence is clearly still there, and there’s like a fuckin flamenco breakdown on this which you kinda have to hear to believe. Honestly this track goes in a lot of directions I wasn’t expecting, like I forgot about half of this, I have no idea what’s going on with those backing vocals at 2:30ish. I dunno, it’s about this point in the album that I start checking out. Don’t get me wrong, I fucking love this album, but normally at this point I’m thinking about things while listening to it so I miss like half of it.

With that said, I’m listening to the next track, Point of You, and it’s way, way better than I gave it credit for. It’s an almost bubbly track with verses that wouldn’t sound out of place in like, a café song. It’s got trumpets going off in the background, yes! Also assuming I’ve got these lyrics right, this is secretly just a really romantic song, which I am occasionally a sucker for. I dunno man, what’s this doing buried at the back here, y’all should promote this.

Considering I’ve had a pretty long day and I’ve already written a lot (both here and in the essay I was writing for uni earlier) I’m going to miss talking about the final 3 tracks, though I will note that they really have a song called Adios and it isn't the last song on the album, that just seems like such an obvious move. Of course, seeing as how a lot of these songs are built on surprise directions, it’s probably intentional. I think part of what makes this album great is the sheer spectacle of it, where it’s just trying to keep you guessing at every turn where it’s going to go. But within that sporadicity is a consistency- no matter where these tracks go, you know it’s going to be built around these immense metal choruses, these similar guitar tones, and these killer riffs. The three tracks I’m not specifically discussing- Monsoon, Adios, and Dig for Bones- all of them might be more of the same, but the same here is great.

And I’ve seen these folks live, and it was a genuinely excellent experience. All that energy shifting as the songs develop, the fact that they were clearly having a lot of fun being there, it was just awesome- especially considering it’s the only time I’ve been to a concert on my own. Like, there’s no pretention with these guys, they’re just a bunch of blokes, they’re out here making goofy music that they enjoy, and doing a good job in the process.

I do legitimately think this album deserves it’s place among the royalty of the ARIA award King Gizzard denied it. Like, aside from the other King Gizz albums on the list of nominees, I can’t see anything I like more on here. This album fucks, but in such a unique way that it gets to stand on its own among dozens of other heavy records. I’m admittedly not super familiar with Twelve Foot Ninja’s first album, Silent Machine, and they are supposed to have one coming this year, but as it is Outlier is easily one of my favourite metal albums, ever.

#ramble #music #alt-metal #twelve foot ninja