Twelve Foot Ninja
Vengeance

The tall ninja returns with the third album in a career reaching back to 2012, and we praised their 2016 album Outlier. They may seem to be quite slow releasing albums being half a decade between the last now, but there is more that first meets the eye. For this one they published a graphic novel on the website and released a fantasy novel themed around their ninja idea, they appear to be thinking a little outside the box when it comes to their releases. While that part is to be commended, Ayreon did for example release a graphic novel with the Transitus albums some year ago, and Hammerfall has also done the same, probably more bands as well, it is not as unique as you might think. Still a written novel is probably a little less common, but for Hallowed it is the music that is reviewed not as much the surrounding work.

I think the artwork is fairly telling what to expect from the album, alternative rock/metal. I compared the band with Korn last time, I still think that is a fairly good comparison if you want some reference. But Twelve Foot Ninja is a diverse band that fuses many musical directions together into their own dynamic style, that for this album has evolved a bit from the earlier one. This is similar yet more elaborate compared with Outlier that came before it. The playing time is short and to the point, the variation is good, the singer has soul and gives life to the songs, and the production is rather excellent.

What is there to complain about? Not much. I think the album have some weaknesses, there are some parts that are quite slow and uninteresting, a little detrimental to the album. The ending is an obvious example of this point but note that these slight negatives don’t do much for the general impression of this great album. Twelve Foot Ninja have far more exciting stuff than dull, and some moments of this album are truly magical. It is a great album that I enjoy listening to, and perhaps it would be even more enhanced by reading the novel associated with it, but I don’t like fantasy so I will probably not take that chance.

You should have a look at that, Twelve Foot Ninja shows that they are a very relevant band, and Vengeance does not only look great; it is great. It is obvious that their swords are still sharp, and they come back with a vengeance – Twelve Foot Ninja is worthy of your attention.

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