The internet is a peculiar place and the metal community that exists on it an even weirder one. To be sure, the readership and power that the modern blogging tools grant us present bands, writers and readers alike with new challenges and questions. How do you stay objective in the face of a strong-willed and often demanding readership? How should bands market themselves to this new stage and should they even address it? These questions, and many more, have been answered in many ways over the last years. Some with less subtlety.
Australian based Twelve Foot Ninja have decided to answer these questions with the sharp end of a cleaver, crowd-funding and cannibalism. Back in 2012, we at Heavy Blog reviewed the band’s debut album and found it to be slightly wanting. A 3/5 score is a fair score in all accounts and does not necessarily mean a bad album. Now, nearly a year and a half later, Twelve Foot Ninja have decided to respond. Sporting “the highest amount successfully crowd funded for a music video”, the band released their video for the single ‘Ain’t That a Bitch’, off their debut album. With the final result at an impressive $52,000 of their fan’s money, the video is nothing short of an adolescent revenge fantasy, casting the lead guitarist as an avenging killer on behalf of the entire metal community.
Steeped in their signature comics style, the clip features a cleaver, a meat mincer and, of all things, the band Periphery dining on man-burgers. The subtext is not difficult to read: internet “trolls” (be they reviewers or angsty fans) are a blight upon society, to be eradicated with a sharp knife and questionable culinary skills. The clip ends on a rather odd note, encouraging us to “Be kind to one another”. Surely, this new community we find ourselves in could do with a little kindness. We here at Heavy Blog don’t tend to hold grudges but it seems odd to us that kindness comes in the form of smashed doors, dismembered limbs, and flesh-burgers.
Check out the video below. What do you think? Should we all retreat into our fortified bunkers, there living out the rest of our troll-like existence? Or should we embrace our new culinary transformation into tasty Periphery-treats?
-EK