ALBUM REVIEW: Failure – ‘Location Lost’

The first thing that anyone (including Hayley Williams, Chino Moreno and Maynard James Keenan) would tell you about Failure is how underrated an album Fantastic Planet is. The second thing would likely be the same about their 2015 comeback The Heart Is A Monster and the run of releases to follow. The third? Well, give it a bit of time, but Location Lost could easily be held in the same esteem.

For Failure—for whom ‘your favourite band’s favourite band’ is more a job title than a simple descriptor—that’s simply the norm. They’ll continue to be great, and do so while going underappreciated outside of those in the know. Hayley Williams isn’t on here as a favour; her inclusion is testament to how far the influence of Failure actually, tacitly reaches. What’s more, on the song she’s on, The Rising Skyline, she isn’t some commandeering hook solely to rope in newer, younger listeners. She’s gentle and low-key, adding to Ken Andrews’ voice without usurping it.

The point is, if you’re listening to Location Lost at all, it’ll likely be for how good you know Failure themselves are. Far from the mere rank and file of ‘90s alt-rock weirdos, they remain decidedly their own thing all these years later. Space-rock meets post-punk meets the creative spark endemic of their era’s best, only now a little older and craggier. Solid State might grandly swoop as if it wants to be a glam-rock song, but the groaning guitars and Andrews’ stone-carved voice are what define it most of all. Later on, the title track and Moonlight Understands actually do take flight into the void, though still bear an uncanniness almost defining of modern Failure.

It’s almost impressive how unconcerned with contemporary cool Location Lost is. Not that you’d expect anything less from this cult band, now eight albums deep, but Failure’s vehemence is striking. It’s where they’re most magnetic, in how they’ll contort and remould grunge’s classic form for The Air’s On Fire, or slither through a Radiohead-esque palette on Someday Soon. Location Lost is never some high-octane thrill-ride, nor would it play to Failure’s strengths to be as such. There’s depth and intricacy deserving of more careful consideration—Greg Edwards’ muscular, present basslines; guitars that can sound layered about half a dozen ways; a production job that simultaneously courts the expanse and keeps everything locked to terra firma.

It can take a while to warm to when you’re unfamiliar, that’s for sure. Location Lost certainly reads impressively, but Failure’s natural gradualness and space-rock baseline can sometimes be hard to swallow. This album isn’t presenting itself as any kind of entry point, either; if your head gets turned by noticing the Hayley Williams feature, there’s no guarantee it’ll stay that way. It’s quite refreshing, honestly. Location Lost never clips back at what’s given Failure the legacy they currently have. Even if something like The Rising Skyline is a more straightforward number—largely acoustic and hushed, the “straight-up break-up song” of the album—it’s not through corners being cut.

Thus, for the anoraks whose lives were changed by Fantastic Planet, Location Lost is a more-than-worthy addition to the lineage. Failure seem like the kind of band who view a lack of wider buzz as incredibly freeing. There’s no need to tilt or tweak in any particular direction, and when that’s the case, you’re left with something like this. It’s true to who Failure are to a fault, and stays adventurous and sonically curious at a point when most bands would have long lost that sparkle. At the same time, the sureness exhibited by Location Lost is unmatched, and Failure’s latest purple patch is all the more impressive for it.

For fans of: Hum, Quicksand, A Perfect Circle

‘Location Lost’ by Failure is released on 24th April on Arduous Records / Virgin Music Group.

Words by Luke Nuttall