An acquaintance recently decided that after 10 years, four albums, thousands of miles touring the world and a handful of those cringey “Ship Rocked” cruises, he was adjourning his band. The pretext involved “leaving on a high note” and that “you never hear fans or writers talking about a band’s ‘essential, groundbreaking eighth album.’”
The members of SoCal post-everything ensemble Failure might read that line and think “cool story, brah” while laughing aloud. Because as the trio delivers its seventh long player, its sense of self-awareness, internal editing and transitional sonic wanderlust remains as compelling as ever. Untethered from L.A. rock scene expectations, their sordid drug histories or the alleged need for critical pigeonholing, Ken Andrews, Greg Edwards and Kelli Scott trade in 100% chemistry steeped in instinct. No wonder your favorite bands have loved them for decades.
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“Crash Test Delayed” opens the proceedings with an amalgam of percolating IDM electronics and Fripp-ian guitar swells before taking an off-ramp into an unknown desert for an insular road movie. It may feel early to pull out the pièce de résistance, but there it is on the second track. “The Rising Skyline” is a melancholy, acoustic guitar-led breakup song that seemingly starts in Laurel Canyon and psychically ends up like iPhone highway footage of the 2025 California wildfires. The participation of Paramore vocalist/longtime Failure superfan Hayley Williams is nothing short of perfect here; her vocal union with Andrews feels as potent as the first time we heard Bilinda Butcher sliding down Kevin Shields’ guitar scree in My Bloody Valentine.
Later, “Moonlight Understands” offers a dramatic, slow-levitating conclusion that might signify a return to a home planet or the doorway marked EXIT through which your consciousness can disappear. Throughout, Failure’s is a world of patented signifiers, teeming with cryptic lyrics and desperate vocals, (consider the chant-to-fade on “A Way Down” and grab a sweater), Scott’s sense of the appropriate and Andrews and Edwards’ vast guitar vocabulary (“Someday Soon,” “Halo and Grain”) that’s one-part psychedelic space station lubricant and the other pointed, sharpened menace. These men haven’t just broken new ground – they’ve rebuilt the fuckin’ highway.
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