Los Angeles-based alt-metal/space-rock trio Failure have announced they'll release The Heart Is a Monster, their first new album in almost two decades, on June 30. Although they first mentioned it in January, the official announcement came this morning (March 30) about a year after the band's initial reunion show last February and just a few days after frontman Ken Andrews shared the album title with an audience at SXSW.

Now they're set to return with an 18-song "Monster" of a record that they've been recording since the summer of 2013. In a statement issued on behalf of the band, Andrews and guitarist/bassist Greg Edwards explained that where they relied heavily on outer space themes as a metaphor on Fantastic Planet, they're exploring inner space and the elusive nature of identity on The Heart is a Monster. According to Edwards, the lyrics are informed by the mysteries of sleep and the routine dissolution of the self.

The new album will arrive via INgrooves imprint, INresidence, and follows 1996's Fantastic Planet, an epic triumph of DIY production that, in retrospect, defined '90s guitar rock even though it seemed destined to be the last word from Failure. In the years since the band's untimely breakup in 1997, Fantastic Planet grew with virtually no promotion into a posthumous sleeper classic. Over time, the album has generated an increasingly enthusiastic cult following. Still, up until last year's surprise reunion, both Andrews and Edwards had long expressed their reluctance to revive Failure while instead whetting fans' appetites by releasing the 2004 B-sides compilation, Golden, and the 2006 compilation, Essentials.

Watch them perform the new song, "Hot Traveler," at SXSW below.

Failure – "Hot Traveler" (Live at SXSW)

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