Influential alt-rockers conquer demons and shake up their signature sound on eclectics new album.
Three decades after first warping the boundaries of alternative rock, Failure remain a band defined by instability in the best possible sense. Their music has always lived in a tenuous nexus where melody and dissonance coexist, resulting in a beautiful tension to match their existential, introspective lyrics. On their new album Location Lost, that push and pull feels more literal than ever.
Reuniting in 2014 after a long hiatus, Failure spent their second act building toward increasingly dense, conceptual works like The Heart Is a Monster, In the Future Your Body Will Be the Furthest Thing from Your Mind, and Wild Type Droid, all of which echoed the emotional and sonic gravity of their 1996 landmark Fantastic Planet. But Location Lost breaks from that lineage. It’s their shortest album, their least conceptual, and arguably their most melodic. Instead of a tightly wound narrative, it plays like a document of disorientation.
That’s not accidental. The album was shaped in the aftermath of frontman Ken Andrews’ surgery and difficult recovery, an experience that left him creatively unmoored during the recording process. With Andrews sidelined, multi-instrumentalist Greg Edwards and drummer Kelli Scott took a more active role in steering the music itself, while Andrews ultimately returned with a surge of lyrical borne of his recovery. The result is a record that feels fractured but purposeful.
Opener “Crash Test Delayed” immediately signals that shift, blending industrial synths, post-punk guitars and airy, cymbal-driven drums. It’s one of the lightest, most overtly “pop” moments Failure has ever committed to tape, acting in juxtaposition to lyrics reflecting uncertainty and disorientation..
Elsewhere, the band continues to stretch. “Someday Soon” leans into a downtempo, trip-hop groove with rhythmic quirks reminiscent of Synchronicity-era The Police, showcasing Failure’s long-standing ability to make dissonance feel oddly comforting. “Solid State” opens in a seasick, My Bloody Valentine-style haze before crashing into anthemic grunge territory, while “Halo and Grain” plays with texture and looseness, its ghostly, almost ramshackle groove that makes for an aggressive earworm.
The emotional core of the record, however, comes from its most direct material. “The Air’s on Fire” is a harrowing reflection of Andrews’ post-surgical trauma, driven by propulsive drums and scything guitars that mirror the panic and disorientation of waking up unable to breathe. It’s one of the heaviest songs here, not just sonically but psychologically.
At the other end of the spectrum is “The Rising Skyline,” a largely acoustic breakup ballad featuring Hayley Williams. Her ethereal vocals add a wistful counterbalance to the song’s emotional weight, eventually giving way to a crunch of distorted guitars. It captures a feeling Failure have always excelled at: sadness that somehow feels comforting, never devolving into hopelessness.
That duality runs throughout Location Lost. The title track drifts in a state of weary disequilibrium, while “A Way Down” churns with restless energy. And then there’s the epic closer, “Moonlight Understands,” a slow-burning, dreamlike ballad that feels like a distant cousin to “Daylight” It’s full of longing and finality, built around imagery that suggests emotional exhaustion and the fading of connection. It’s one of the most straightforwardly beautiful songs Failure have ever written and literally chill inducing.
If there’s a defining trait here, it’s unpredictability. Even the band acknowledges this is their least cohesive album. But rather than feeling scattered, Location Lost plays like a necessary unraveling. Where past albums aimed for conceptual unity, this one embraces fragmentation, yet still balanced by lyrical cohesion.
In that sense, Location Lost feels like a transition. Whether it’s the end of a chapter or the beginning of another isn’t clear, but that uncertainty is part of what makes it compelling. Failure aren’t revisiting their past or chasing their legacy. They’re still searching, still experimenting, still willing to let things fall apart and see what comes next instead of clinging to past formulas.
And for a band that has largely built a career out of exploring what happens after circumstances collapse, that somehow feels fitting..
