Failure

Failure are one of those bands whose influence runs deeper than their name lets on, a group that turned alienation and altitude into a sound nobody else has quite replicated. They formed in Los Angeles in 1990, when Greg Edwards answered an ad for a bassist placed by Ken Andrews. What began as a roommate's classified grew into a partnership built on shared obsessions: dense guitar tone, science-fiction atmosphere, and a willingness to spend whatever time it took to get a record exactly right.

The early run tells the story. Their 1992 debut, Comfort, was tracked with Steve Albini, but the band came away unsatisfied with how it sounded and the way they had been kept at arm's length from the mix. So they did the obvious, difficult thing: they taught themselves to produce. By Magnified in 1994 and especially Fantastic Planet in 1996, Andrews and Edwards were running the boards themselves, with drummer Kellii Scott locking in the rhythm. Fantastic Planet is the cornerstone, a sprawling album the band reportedly built from scratch while living together in a house for six months. Its single "Stuck on You" climbed the Mainstream Rock chart, and its spacey, narcotic atmosphere has aged into something close to legend among people who care about the form.

Listen to "Another Space Song" and you can hear the whole thesis: a slow-burning, gravity-bending track that pairs heavy low end with melodies that drift like they are coming in over a long distance. It is patient music that rewards volume and headphones, and it explains why so many guitarists and producers cite Failure as a touchstone. The space-rock label fits, but it undersells the craft. These are pop songs hidden inside cathedrals of distortion.

The band split in 1997, and the members scattered into projects that became notable in their own right, from Edwards' work in Autolux to Andrews' solo records and Scott's many collaborations. That could have been the ending. Instead, Failure reunited in late 2013 and returned to the stage in early 2014 with a show that sold out almost instantly, proof that the audience had only been waiting. What followed is one of the more impressive second acts in alternative rock: The Heart Is a Monster in 2015, In the Future Your Body Will Be the Furthest Thing from Your Mind in 2018, and Wild Type Droid in 2021, each one expanding the palette rather than chasing the past.

They are still very much in motion. Their newest album, Location Lost, brings tracks like "The Rising Skyline" and "The Air's on Fire," songs that show the trio has lost none of its appetite for scale and texture. The live take on "Another Space Song" cut for Apple Music Radio is a reminder of how well this material breathes in the room.

Failure make music for the long haul, the kind you keep returning to and keep finding more inside. Three decades in, they are writing some of the most assured work of their career.