en Andrews, as his small but unwaveringly faithful cult would have you believe, is one of the great unsung heroes of mid-90s ‘alternative rock.’ Though he has performed many different roles, from producer to engineer, to guest instrumentalist and vocalist (ranging from bands as diverse as the Molly McGuires, Self, and Air), his greatest accolades have been lavished as a result of his own now-defunct band, Failure, a moniker which is at once truthful and a complete misnomer.


Failure’s 1992 debut, Comfort, is an effort best forgotten to the sands of time. The Steve Albini-engineered platter is the sound of a band being completely misinterpreted, as the production lumps them in with every other pitiable second-generation grunge band. It doesn’t help that Andrews is still lost in the void here, struggling to find his voice amidst the oh-so intentionally dirty washes of aimless guitar crunches.


The 1994 release of Magnified cleared up some of these problems, finally showing why there was so much hype about these guys. Going against the grain with a crystal-clear sheen of production, and foregoing many of the dissonant power chords of Comfort, Andrews showed his true colors here, with the introduction of synthesizers, and his snaking, filtered guitar textures which painted the album in hues of prog-rock. Unfortunately, the songwriting still wasn’t there, and few songs are truly memorable, even after many repeated listens.


Which meant that the appearance of Fantastic Planet took everyone by surprise. Released in 1996, Fantastic Planet is Andrew’s magnum-opus, an epic slab of grunge ethos, prog-rock postulating, and post-punk electronic love. Depeche Mode meets Nirvana meets Pink Floyd, if you will. And it works, amazingly enough. In the two years since Magnified, Andrews must have done many things to hone his craft, but above all, it seems he discovered heroin (or at the very least, the joys of finally writing about it). Fantastic Planet is a pinhead symphony to this, a dirge of junkie life (and death). Double-entendre pieces such as “Stuck On You” are clever, haunting and brutal. Is it a forlorn love song? A creepy stalker anthem? An ode to smack? The answer is all of these, and like Andrews sings, Fantastic Planet “burrows like a summer tick,” invading your dreams and confusing your sleep.


And then they broke up.


One of the most promising rock albums in recent memory, and this seemingly superhuman group proved all-too vulnerable to error. Andrews is not one to rest on his laurels, however. Which brings us to ON, and the debut, Shifting Skin.


A single-man project, ON presents Ken Andrews in a completely undiluted light – this is the first record he’s made completely out of his own vision, with nobody else to answer to. What’s surprising is how completely different it sounds from anything he’s ever done before, but in many ways is the next logical step he had to take.


Put simply, Shifting Skin is a pure pop record. A deep, neon-blue shine covers this album, Andrews no longer shreds his voice on the mike, but croons in a velvet-covered rasp, and the guitar textures have been abandoned in favor of vintage synthesizers and space-age programming. ON is not the grunge-on-acid epic rock of Failure; ON is a pissed-off Duran Duran. Andrews doesn’t write six-plus minute odes to putting a spike in his vein here. Instead, he writes about the only thing more painful and frustrating than drug addiction – girls.


Cuts such as “If I Get To Feel You” and “Slingshot” are wonderfully singable pop moments, full of single-minded come-ons and a healthy dose of dangerous sexuality. Guitars (both acoustic and electric) nestle up against incessant drum programming, howling, warbling bubbles of confectionary synthesizers swoop in from all directions, and Andrews attacks these songs with a fervor and affection that is completely unironic. He really does believe he’s rewriting the synth-pop bible here, and you’re helpless to do anything but cheer him on.


Diehard Failure fans will be put-off by this disc, but shame on them for abandoning it. With each successive album Failure put out, Andrews relied more and more on synthesizers and studio trickery to accomplish his lofty goals, while at the same time sharpening his songsmith skills to a razor’s edge. Which is why ON is in many ways the culmination of all his goals – he achieves a heady brew of juxtaposed electronics and guitars, and this batch of songs, while certainly not his strongest, is without a doubt his most catchy. And, like all great pop songs, they retain their charms after many, many listens, still sounding just as fresh as the first time you heard them.


Failure fans need not be completely disenchanted, however. Shifting Skin has more than a few moments of guitar heroics, such as the climax of the surging “Soluble Words” (which shows just how much Failure meant their searing cover of “Enjoy The Silence”) and the messy, unstable head-bobber “Paper Thin Soul.”


While Shifting Skin may seem juvenile in parts (such as the sci-fi love bomb “Slingshot” or the rudimentary patterns of “Pick Up”), this is all part of Andrew’s master plan. Shifting Skin is the complete antithesis of Fantastic Planet, and part of doing that means having fun, which you can tell Andrews is doing every step of the way. Instead of winding down the album with a dying supernova of a prog opus (as “Heliotropic” does in Fantastic Planet), Andrews opts for the simple forlorn melancholy of “Building...” which is framed by gentle acoustic guitar, live drumming and a plaintive string section.


In short, from the near Beach Boys harmonizing of the title track to the twilight drones of the “Elegia”-ish closer “Pick Up,” Shifting Skin is a flawless pop record, equally distilling the spirits of classic new wave, everything from Depeche Mode to New Order, and melding it with Andrew’s particular brand of melancholy. Come listen to a master craftsman work his trade as only he can.