'Thematically we ve moved from the outer space of Fantastic
Planet to inner space', said guitar/bass player Greg Edwards of
Failure's new album, the band's first full-length since 1996, The
Heart Is A Monster. 'From the dislocation of one's identity to
the complete erasing of it by and dreams. I think we've
used instrumentation in the service of mood and emotion to an
even greater degree than on our previous records'.
The band returned from a 17-year hiatus in early 2014 with a
single Los Angeles date planned. The show sold out in seconds,
which led to a North American tour, including a run of dates with
Tool and appearances at Riot Fest, Fun Fun Fun and Cinquanta, and
eventually back to the studio. In a recent interview with Noisey,
singer/guitar/bass player Ken Andrews admits by the time the band
announced their first live outing, he, Edwards and drummer Kellii
Scott were already working on new music, saying 'One thing that
Greg and I agreed on very early on, is that we did not want to
reform for just one or two nostalgia tours. We wanted to come
back as a full functioning musical force and creatively pick up
where we left off with Fantastic Planet. That meant we needed to
start experimenting in the studio first, which we did in late
2013. After a few months, we came to the conclusion that we were
having a good time and that we liked the results, and that we
thought the results were definitely Failure. We've been chipping
away at a new album this whole time.' In that same article,
Andrews and Edwards said that their approach to writing and
Fantastic Planet and The Heart Is A Monster have been
similar, saying 'The songs on Fantastic Planet appear more or
less in the order that we wrote them... when, we do a song now,
we write it and record it soup-to-nuts without moving to another
song... It takes longer, but it makes more sense for us
artistically to explore a song completely before you move on'.
'Trying to follow up Fantastic Planet was a bit daunting', said
Andrews, who mixed The Heart Is A Monster with the band acting as
producers. 'We've pushed the bar upward again, but at the same
time, we've kept the signature sound of the band intact'.
Failure's SXSW performance, about which Yahoo Music said 'the
beloved cult band... thrilled a practically openly weeping crowd
of superfans' was the trio's first live performance since
wrapping production on The Heart is A Monster, included the new
song Hot Traveler, which Entertainment Weekly said 'had every bit
the sonic thickness, rhythmic thump, and melodic bite as
favorites like Another Space Song and Heliotropic'. Failure
formed in Los Angeles in the early 90s, releasing Comfort, their
debut album, in 1992 via Slash Records. Magnified followed in the
spring of 1994 with the band's final offering, Fantastic Planet,
released in 1996. Fantastic Planet earned a perfect 5-star score
from Alternative Press with the magazine saying the album 'was
able to breathe life into the corpse of contemporary,
guitar-driven rock', adding that the band 'was willing to stretch
the definition of both their instruments and their songs'. The
17-track album is considered one of the era's most influential
and enduring rock records. Over the years, Failure has become
known as a band's band whose songs have been covered by such
diverse artists as A Perfect Circle ( The Nurse Who Loved Me )
and Paramore ( Stuck On You ). Tool/A Perfect Circle singer
Maynard James Keenan said, 'Failure has been a huge inspiration
to me. They say amateurs borrow and professionals steal. Well
over the years this pro has robbed those poor saps blind'.