Twelve Foot Ninja - Outlier album review

Aussie musical magpies' electrifying second album defies all genre conventions

By
( )
published
Twelve Foot Ninja Outlier album cover

You can trust Louder Our experienced team has worked for some of the biggest brands in music. From testing headphones to reviewing albums, our experts aim to create reviews you can trust. Find out more about how we review.

So, what to make of the second album from these bonkers Melbourne musos? Well, that’s easy, because as soon as Outlier’s opening track One Hand Killing unfurls, you know it’s just not possible to clarify exactly where this belongs. It’s got metal, rap, funk, soul, punk… all on one track that twists and turns quite breathtakingly.

This sets the scene, and from here on the five-piece explore a spectrum of avenues on an album that can be compared to early Faith No More or Rage Against The Machine, but stands on its own in a joyous exposition of music that refuses to stand still long enough to fit comfortably into any hole.

The album sways on Invincible and Oxygen, blares on Post Mortem and Dig For Bones and hits a smooth groove on Sick and Point Of You. Outlier is a fun record all the way, and with repeated listens becomes even more electrifying.

Malcolm Dome
Malcolm Dome

Malcolm Dome had an illustrious and celebrated career which stretched back to working for Record Mirror magazine in the late 70s and Metal Fury in the early 80s before joining Kerrang! at its launch in 1981. His first book, Encyclopedia Metallica, published in 1981, may have been the inspiration for the name of a certain band formed that same year. Dome is also credited with inventing the term "thrash metal" while writing about the Anthrax song Metal Thrashing Mad in 1984. With the launch of Classic Rock magazine in 1998 he became involved with that title, sister magazine Metal Hammer, and was a contributor to Prog magazine since its inception in 2009. He died in 2021.