Year of the Rabbit: The Middle Finger Between Worlds

There’s a very specific kind of ghost that haunts post-’90s alt rock—bands caught between the death of the major label gold rush and the digital Wild West that followed. Year of the Rabbit is one of those bands, not a bridge but a brick thrown across the chasm. A flare in the fog. The kind of record that disappears in real time and still manages to leave scars.

Ken Andrews doesn’t do vanity projects. That’s the first thing. We’ve already talked Failure—the weightless doom of Fantastic Planet, the quiet implosion, the mythic resurrection. But Year of the Rabbit? That’s the between-lives gasp. That’s the hard reboot. And somehow, it’s the cleanest and most poisoned thing Andrews ever touched.

2003 was a graveyard. Everyone either went “garage” or went home. Indie was getting twee again, or worse, smug. Emo was cashing checks it couldn’t cash artistically. Rock radio was clogged with mudflap-core and nu-metal leftovers trying to rebrand as introspective. Enter Year of the Rabbit—a self-titled shot fired with zero chance of survival, and no desire to conform to the survival handbook anyway.

This is not a sprawling record. It’s lean, hard-edged, surgical. It cuts close. The guitars are granite. The choruses are criminally precise. There are no wasted moments, no self-congratulating interludes, no wink-nudge production tricks. Just eleven tracks of obsessive craftsmanship and clean-lined rage. It’s post-grunge without the bloat, alt-rock without the self-loathing, power-pop dipped in battery acid.

“Lie Down” kicks it off like a warning. Not a “hello,” a goddamn demand. Those harmonies don’t float—they punch. The drums (Tim Dow, once of Shiner) hit with that math-rock exactness but never feel cold. There’s blood in the machine. “Last Defense” follows, all tension and tether, a chorus that rises just when it should collapse. And then there’s “Hunted,” which is pure static-sex electricity, every note hotwired and urgent.

This band was built to fail commercially. You could feel it. They were too polished for the indie kids and too smart for the radio kids. But Year of the Rabbit wasn’t trying to win anyone over. That’s part of what makes it addictive—it sounds like it knows the room is empty and plays like it’s still trying to burn it down. There’s something beautifully bitter in that.

Let’s talk about “Absent Stars,” though. That one doesn’t drift—it drives. All piston-tight rhythm and melodic muscle, like Failure stripped for parts and rebuilt for forward momentum. The vocals are clean but clenched, and that chorus feels like it’s punching through concrete. It’s not haunted—it’s defiant. The sound of running full speed into the unknown because stopping would hurt more.

And the closer, “Say Goodbye,” doesn’t float off into the ether—it detonates in slow motion. The final chorus feels like Andrews is dragging the band into the abyss with him. No fadeout. Just a controlled demolition.

There’s a reason this band hit people who’d been through the Failure fallout hard. YOTR wasn’t a reunion or a nostalgia act. It was a statement of intent: I’m still here, and I’ve sharpened my tools.There’s no wink at the past, no sentimental callbacks. The production is tight and glassy, but never sterile. It doesn’t shimmer—it glints, like a knife in low light.

Andrews always had an ear for the heavy sublime—how to stack frequencies so they land like anvil and angel at once. This is the apex of that skillset. The album doesn’t meander like Magnified, and it doesn’t dissolve like Comfort. It’s relentless without being joyless, and that’s rare.

But here’s the rub: the label (Elektra) collapsed not long after this record dropped. No tour, no real push, no follow-up. Just another brilliant casualty of the early-2000s major-label implosion. Year of the Rabbit got swallowed up in the noise of an industry shedding its skin, and for a long time it felt like nobody was going to dig it back up.

But the ones who did? Lifers. You’ll find them at Failure shows, mouthing along to “River.” You’ll hear them name-check it when talking about the best rock records no one talks about. It’s become one of those coded reference points—say Year of the Rabbit, and the right people nod.

And maybe that’s where this album was always meant to live. In the bloodstream of the obsessed. In playlists built at 2 a.m. with headphones on and lights off. It doesn’t want your attention—it earns it. It doesn’t need a legacy—it is one, in miniature.

Ken Andrews would go on to reform Failure, to score films, to produce, to keep bending sound to his will. But this album—this one moment where the control was total and the outcome tragic—is a masterclass in purity. Not “purity” like innocence, but like meth. Refined. Condensed. Dangerous.

Year of the Rabbit doesn’t need rescuing. It’s already survived. It just needs to be heard.