by Jeremy Bennett (@JeremyVBennett)
In the mid-90s it seems like every Sam Goody or Camelot Music had a copy of Failure’s Magnified in the cut-out cassette bin. The band had a perfect Gen-X name, one that captured the feeling of every teen who was dropped off at the mall by their parents and left to browse discounted music racks in the neon glow of store signs while being watched closely by guys in ties manning the floors.
The band’s third album, Fantastic Planet, was released two years later and it seemed like maybe every kid had thrown down their lunch money on Magnified as lead single “Stuck on You” hit MTV and the alternative rock charts. Unfortunately, the band was unable to expand their audience and split up in 1997. After performing in a number of other music projects (ON, Autolux) the band reunited in 2013 for a string of shows and rumblings of new music followed. In 2015, Failure released The Heart is a Monster and, like co-90s darlings The Afghan Whigs, proved their late-stage comeback was more than a nostalgia grab.
Now, 15 years after their seminal album release and subsequent break-up, Failure has recorded one of their strongest efforts yet. Wild Type Droid is shorter (clocking in at 40 minutes over ten tracks), more direct. (gone are the ambient segues from previous albums), and heavier (lots of baritone guitar and Fender Bass VI).
For a band that has been described for most of its tenure as “space rock,” Failure has picked an interesting time to make an Earth-bound record. Opener, “Water with Hands,” sets the scene with its low-end rumbling and a lyrical theme (if everything’s true then nothing is real/if nothing is true then everything is real) that makes clear where the band’s focus is at.
Lead single “Headstand” drops in a Brian Eno reference among a deep groove while “Submarines” is possibly the band’s most muscular track to date sinking them even further in the opposite direction of space. “Long Division” is a mirror of Fantastic Planet’s “Another Space Song” where the band does have a Houston to whine down to — grounding the track in bass until familiar lofty guitar tones lift off towards the end.
Replacing the segues are slow burners and ballad-esque tracks like “Undecided” that make one wonder if Failure regret their return and might be looking for the first Space X trip off this rock in lines like “I need to wake up/make my way back to the moon/I need to go now while the ocean's still blue/and nothing is real”. In the meantime, it’s good to have them here among the warm jets.