The Masters Of Stealth & Fusion: Twelve Foot Ninja Are Back With A 'Vengeance'

Embodying the towering stealth their namesake entails, Melbourne rock fusion mavericks Twelve Foot Ninja snuck back with gusto into minds and ears earlier this year with their first voracious taste of new material since their second album Outlier back in 2016. 

Unveiling the snarly jaunt Long Way Home back in May, the LOLs were real as the group also unleashed a hilarious accompanying music video for the track alongside a 2D platformer videogame, where fans savvy enough to collect all 12 of the brick phones in the game unlocked an unexpected holy grail: priority access to the new tune. 

And just as we'd recovered from the revelation late last week of another new track courtesy of Start The Fire, today the quartet have officially confirmed a slew of new treats to accompany their long-awaited third album VENGEANCE due out on Friday 15 October, with a new music video, as well as an immersive multi-media project dubbed (of course) PROJECT VENGEANCE set to be the band's most ambitious endeavour yet. 

Accompanying the release of VENGEANCE this October will be a fantasy novel titled THE WYVERN AND THE WOLF, written by Nicholas Snelling. Conceived by Twelve Foot's guitarist/producer Stevic McKay and partner Fiona Permezel, the novel tells the tale of an orphaned samurai boy adopted by the ruthless leader of a clan of ninja, building the tale of Kiyoshi, the eponymous Twelve Foot Ninja, in a grim and savage fantasy world.

While literary high fantasy lies in wait in the new novel, for those who can't wait for the release in a few months' time, a graphic novel VENGEANCE, written by McKay with artwork by George Evangelista, is available right now on the band's website, featuring the namesake Twelve Foot Ninja journey through alternate dimensions to take on an evil alien entity. 

While graphic novels and 2D video games may seem an unlikely and ambitions path, it's the unlikely challenges this outing poses that has sparked Twelve Foot Ninja to truly embrace their innovative spirits, driven by the unsustainable hurdles that continually stand in the way of musicians around the world. And it is, indeed, a vision that the band have had in place long before 2021, planning from day one to expand into a suite of deeply immersive content.

“This is an exorcism of content that’s spent a decade in gestation," explained McKay in their latest press release. "‘Catharsis’ is close to what it feels like to finally share Kiyoshi’s story; and I guess respond to all questions pertaining to our name.

"All this time, so many have thought ‘Twelve Foot Ninja’ was tongue-in-cheek, when in actuality, the story’s genesis occurred a year before the formation of the band.

" I really hope our fans enjoy the vastness of what we’ve created, and we’re able to continue to surprise people with new methods of storytelling.”

The news of this Twelve Foot content bonanza will come as no surprise to fans of the Melbourne outfit; standing still has never been on the menu for the group, previously breaking the world-record for the most successful crowdfunding of a music video alongside a sweltering 42 million spins on Spotify and 22 million plays on YouTube so far.

To top off today's slew of Twelve Foot announcements, the brand new video for Start The Fire out today is also accompanied by an announcement of upcoming live shows set to hit Adelaide, Brisbane and Melbourne in October - the group's first shows in Australia since 2019. (And don't worry Sydney and Perth, your time will come in 2022, sadly due to limited venue options. Watch this space).

For now, come grab a gander at the new clip, which teams with the ongoing graphic novel and comic book theme, taking lyrical inspiration from Todd Phillips and Scott Silver's portrayal of the Joker, and visually having Twelve Foot Ninja strung up and injected with a copper-based substance. What happens next? You'll have to grab a watch to find out!

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For more info on PROJECT VENGEANCE and the upcoming album, visit twevefootninja.com. Head to theGuide for all upcoming tour dates.

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