Failure (King Missile album)

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[2]

Brian Flota of AllMusic awarded Failure four out of five stars, calling its music "repulsively absurd, detailed personal attacks of venomous cynicism" that "may be as strongly worded as Jonathan Swift (read A Modest Proposal) and exaggerated as Voltaire (compare Pangloss' philosophy to track one)."[2] Ink 19 commended the band's return to their Shimmy Disc and their band's individual performances.[3] While subtly clever at times, Failure provides no instant gratification such as "Detachable Penis," "Jesus Was Way Cool," and "certainly has its moments, but the musical noodling is distracting and there're only a few "must-have" tracks here."[4] Trouser Press said "the music is unassailable (Rick does his part with several hair-raising noise-fuzz-wah-guitar solos), but — with the exception of "The Dishwasher," an extraordinary multi-leveled evocation of the post-stress syndrome crime-fearing urbanites endure daily — the album draws close to self-parody."[5]

All lyrics are written by John S. Hall; all music is composed by Bradford Reed, Charles Curtis, Sasha Forte and John S. Hall.

Adapted from the Failure liner notes.[6]

King Missile

• Bradford Reed – pencilina, piano, organ, synthesizer, drums, percussion, backing vocals, engineering, photography
• Charles Curtis – cello, guitar, backing vocals
• Sasha Forte – violin, viola, bass guitar, backing vocals, production
• John S. Hall – lead vocals, backing vocals, production

Additional performers

• Jane Scarpantoni – cello, synthesizer

Production and design

• David Bias – art direction
• Mark Kramer – production
• Sasha Forte – production
• Nancy Hall – photography
• Sascha von Oertzen – assistant engineering
• Yuriko Tada – cover art, liner notes

• Official website
• Failure at Discogs (list of releases)
• Failure at iTunes