IN REVIEW: Failure - "The Heart is a Monster"

 

As influential as Refused was to turn-of-the-century punk, a case can be made for Failure being just as influential on hard rock of the same era. The Nurse Who Loved Me was famously covered by A Perfect Circle in 2003, while moderate U.S. hits Saturday Savior and Stuck On You bear seeds of what bands such as Staind and Deftones would later use to inhabit the dark corners of nu-metal (you know, the slow, morose stuff far removed from yelping rappers). Their third album, 1996's Fantastic Planet, counted all three of those songs among its fourteen (plus three segués) while filling out the remainder of its 68 minutes with one hidden gem after another. There's the thunderous, melodic darkness of Smoking Umbrellas and Dirty Blue Balloons, the nimble fury of Pillowhead and Leo, and the sprawling bombast of closing pair Heliotropic and Daylight. Put simply, Fantastic Planet is one of the most criminally overlooked records of the '90s.

In a strange turn of events, The Heart is a Monster sees Failure intent on picking up where they left off, which is a rather dicey proposition nineteen years after the fact. Yet, here we are, pressing play on their first record in nearly two decades and being greeted by Segué 4. It's as blatant an attempt at recalling a band's glory days as you can get without the band in question recording new versions of their old songs. 

This would be problematic if Failure couldn't pull it off, but the good news is that they do for the most part. A.M. Amnesia sounds every bit a part of Failure's legacy as Saturday Savior, albeit with just a touch of modern sheen thrown on top of it. Petting the Carpet is a little more explicit in its nostalgia, which makes sense considering the song was originally an outtake from their first record in 1992. Perhaps the only new song that feels derivative is Otherwhere, but it hits the mark with such accuracy it almost defies criticism.

When they strike the balance between nostalgia and exploration just right, the results are staggering; Snow Angel fleshes out the core sound with subtle acoustics, while Atom City Queen rides a crisp, processed beat into a wonky, noisy chorus; both songs sound like fresh takes on old ideas, but neither feel too obvious. Counterfeit Sky strikes this balance perfectly, branching out from the core sound with falsetto and psychedelic flourishes to culminate in perhaps the record's most stunningly beautiful moment. 

The Heart is a Monster has its share of surprises, too; Mulholland Dr. glides on a hazy, piano-led melody that evokes more memories of Abbey Road than Fantastic Planet. The Focus, originally released as a one-off single last year, sounds like something Queens of the Stone Age might whip up if they were more heavily influenced by Failure. 

The hour-plus album was a common occurrence in the '90s, but in the age of short albums and shorter attention spans The Heart is a Monster feels a bit stretched out, especially with its last song (I Can See Houses, a rerecording of one of their earliest songs as a means to wrap the journey through time in a nice bow) bookended by two segués, making up nearly thirteen minutes of the record. Truth be told, the segués offer little in the way of support for the songs or the album as a whole outside of the occasional diversion. I get why they're here, I'm just saying that devoting 17% of the record to these interludes gets a little excessive, and removing them (only exception is Segué 4 because it acts as a proper intro to Hot Traveler) results in a 52 minute album comprised of twelve songs that plays more consistent.

That said, I'm being nitpicky, and there aren't any major malfunctions on this record; besides, Failure don't owe any concessions to me or anyone else. The very fact that a new record exists by this band is reason enough for celebration and, even if they don't get enough credit for their role in shaping hard rock, I'll give them due credit in what they're shaping now.

June 30, 2015 • INgrooves

Highlights Snow Angel • Atom City Queen • Counterfeit Sky