Album Review: Failure - Fantastic Planet Live
I don’t think I’ve witnessed a successfully executed
Kickstarter or Pledge Music campaign.
The first one I participated in was in 2012, when the
reclusive and eccentric Cody Chesnutt was crowdsourcing for his sophomore
album, Landing on A Hundred. Slated
for an October release, a series of setbacks (Hurricane Sandy was blamed at one
point) pushed the physical release of the album into January 2013.
In 2015, the Deftones side project Team Sleep launched a
campaign for the release of its live album, The
Woodstock Sessions; a campaign botched from the word go, with many fans
assuming they were receiving the live album and their funding going toward the
recording of a new Team Sleep record (this was not the case), and the album
itself showing up in iTunes before those who had pledged received notification
it was available to download.
Reuniting at the start of 2014, the group Failure has used
the Pledge Music platform to some marginal success, but there is still a
disconnect somewhere between the fans throwing out their money and the artist
offering something in return. The band used the service to release its fourth
album, 2015’s The Heart is A Monster,
and have used it again for the release of a limited edition live album that
commemorates last year’s 20th anniversary performances of their
seminal album, Fantastic Planet. The
live recording’s mixing and mastering was recently completed and released as a
download for those who pledged; the release date for the CD and vinyl editions
are still TBA.
The idea of “shutting up and playing the hits” isn’t enough
to get people out of their houses to see you live in concert anymore. No, you
have to play your classic album “from start to finish,” preferably if it is an
album that is celebrating a milestone anniversary. Visiting select cities in
the latter half of 2016 (Minneapolis not being one of them) Failure recorded
each show during the tour, and have spent the last couple of months laboring
over which version of each song in the album’s sequencing to include in the
live iteration.
The result is a relatively cohesive mix that both
streamlines the original album’s incredibly dense and layered sounds, as well
as beefs them up due to the band’s enormous sounding live presence. Throughout,
it’s impressive to think that it is just three people on stage making all of it
happen.
In his post-Failure career, the band’s defacto frontman Ken
Andrews, became an in demand producer and engineer, so the album sounds like a
million bucks. Every snare hit of Kellii Scott’s drum kit packs a tight punch,
guitarist Greg Edward’s feedback laden solos roar above everything else, and
Andrews’ own fuzzed out bass strums snarl in the low corners of the mix.
However, that million-dollar sound also detracts slightly
from the ramshackle, unhinged, and raw urgency with which the original album
was recorded twenty years ago—this is most noticeable with Scott’s percussion;
before, it sounded like it was on the verge of destroying his kit. Here, it’s
still impressive, but perhaps because of the live recording, it just has a “big
rock” sound instead of someone pummeling a drumhead like their life depended on
it.
One way to look at is as Fantastic
Planet growing up—getting sober, being twenty years older, but still
willing to wax nostalgic about the past.
“Good evening ladies and gentlemen,” Andrews deadpans after
the final notes of “Saturday Savior” ring out. “And welcome to Fantastic Planet.” His comment is, of
course, met with cheers of approval from the audience. And that’s the thing
with a live album, isn’t it? It’s just a service to the fans—especially a
project like this one, even though the fans are the ones funding it.
I understand you need the crowd noise after each song—it
would be tough (and possibly weird) to pull off a live album without it. One
thing that struck me as odd while listening to Fantastic Planet Live is that, even though the audiences are aware
the band is playing the album from start to finish, they still seem surprised
when the next song begins, as if they didn’t know what was coming next. They
still cheer and applaud, as if to say, “OH SHIT THEY ARE PLAYING THIS SONG.”
With that, also, come the obligatory sounds of the crowd
attempting to sing along. “Say hello,” some jabroni in the audience yells at
Andrews before he utters the first line to “The Nurse Who Loved Me.” Andrews’
retort is to encourage everyone to participate, and at one point with a key
lyric, steps away from the microphone—allowing a bunch of off key yelling from
the first few rows take over for him.
Andrews’ voice has aged twenty years, so it’s a little bit
lower in range; the well structured guitar chaos that Edwards probably labored
over in the studio twenty years ago is a bit hit-or-miss in a live setting,
which is to be expected I suppose. His attempts at the theatrics from “Pitiful”
never really take off the way they did on the recording.
But I guess if you want to hear it the way it sounds on the
record, then listen to the record. I shouldn’t expect that kind of precision
from a live recording.
Also, “Leo” and “Pillowhead” are still the two least
essential songs of the bunch. They always have been.
I’m doing a lot of nit picking here, yes, but overall, Fantastic Planet Live is an enjoyable
listen, and the band still seems surprised that the album that destroyed them also
found them a cult following that still worships this record, twenty years after
the fact. And despite a few of my criticisms of the record, it is pretty incredible
to hear the band, reunited, continuing to breath life (and presumably have fun)
performing these songs.
Fantastic Planet
turned twenty in August of 2016. In the early days of this blog, I had written something that talked about the band’s reunion, their first live show back
together, and my history with the band—a group I’ve loved since I was a
freshman in high school.
Because I had already kind of covered the bases of what I
write in my standard “thinkpieces,” I was kind of at a loss on what to write
about to commemorate the album’s anniversary.
Also, at this time, I was still struggling through a
debilitating depression, and the idea of writing something lengthy and
exhausting and personal was too much at the time.
Along with OK Computer,
I credit Fantastic Planet with
teaching me how to listen to music,
and to experience an entire album for what it is, not just listen to the
popular songs that I would hear on the radio or on MTV. It’s a CD that I’ve had
to buy more than once since my original copy became too worn out. It’s
something I put on a cassette to listen to on my Walkman on the bus in the
mornings before school; it’s something I rocked out to (heavily) in my first car
after turning 16.
It introduced me to the film with which the album takes its
title from, as well as the Russian film maker Andrei Tarkovsky.
It’s an album about a lot of things—space madness and
alienation, both literally and as a metaphor for crippling heroin addiction,
dying in your sleep in a house fire, being somebody’s side bitch, an
interrogation of some kind, and more. There is so much more. It’s such a rich,
multi-layered record—it’s loud and cacophonic but it’s so beautiful and
captures a moment in time.
Fantastic Planet Live is about extending that moment in
time and making something more out of it. And once it’s over, as if I needed
one, this live recording serves as a reminder of just why I like the band, and
this album, in the first place.
About a year ago I met this band and little by little I have been introducing myself to its atmosphere. I have not been able to find this album in lossless format, do you have it? Thank you
ReplyDeletehey thanks for checking out this review. i think a lossless option may have been available when the live album was originally announced via the pledge music site. but that's long gone now.
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