Heavy Song of the Week: Failure Arrange a Beautiful Textural Cacophony on “The Air’s on Fire”

Heavy Song of the Week is a feature on Heavy Consequence breaking down the top metal, punk, and hard rock tracks you need to hear every Friday. This week, we highlight the latest from alt-rock vets Failure, entitled “The Air’s on Fire.”

Failure‘s first new song in four years, “The Air’s on Fire,” is, well… straight fire — a smoldering fuse of a track that builds upon itself, blooming into a textural cacophony in its culminating moments.

The vocal melody of Ken Andrews and the repeated guitar riff from Greg Edwards form a spacey, intoxicating syncopation that becomes a psych-prog workout when the jackhammer drumming of Kelli Scott comes in. The tempos and timings shift as the song progresses, the veteran band operating like the well-oiled machine that it is. And we haven’t even mentioned Failure’s obligatory studio craftsmanship and hi-fi production. The song is a delight to listen to.

Honorable Mentions:

Arch Enemy – “To the Last Breath”

No that’s not Angela Gossow… it’s Lauren Hart! The former Once Human singer is now fronting Arch Enemy, who marked the occasion with the single “To the Last Breath.” The track is in line with the top-tier power metal we’ve come to expect from the Swedish vets — mixing harsh and melodic metal seamlessly — and Hart sounds great, dishing out devilish snarls and death metal growls like Gossow and Alissa White-Gluz before her.

Exodus – “Goliath”

Exodus have billed the title track from their new album as their doomiest song to date, and they weren’t kidding. This is slow, bludgeoning metal, structured around an evil arpeggio from Gary Holt. You can almost hear him restraining himself from playing any faster. Meanwhile, comeback-frontman-of-the-year candidate Rob Dukes gets to really dig into his gnarliest growls and bellows — another standout performance on his first Exodus album since 2010.

Poison the Well – “Everything Hurts”

The second single from Poison the Well’s comeback album is more atmospheric compared to the hardcore-tinged “Thoroughbreds”, though the band does dig in for some aggro post-chorus flourishes here. It’s an interesting arrangement laced with elements of prog and post-rock — a welcome surprise that’s completely at odds with current metalcore trends.