Failure is set to perform at 8 p.m. Thursday at Liberty Hall.

When Failure decided to reunite, they went big.

After a nearly two-decade-long hiatus, the iconic ’90s alternative band is releasing a highly anticipated and impressively lengthy 18-track album, “The Heart is a Monster,” on June 30. So naturally, they’re kicking off a tour just a couple of days after its release. Their first stop lands them at Liberty Hall on Thursday.

Failure did, however, get to warm up with a reunion tour last year before ever heading into the studio. Guitarist Greg Edwards says that tour is what prompted them to end the split and finally put out some new music.

“We already had decided we weren’t just going to do a reunion tour unless part of that was writing new material and releasing it,” Edwards says. “That was always the plan. It was never a possibility that we would just go out and do a reunion tour and call it quits. The whole momentum and fuel of that reunion was the fact that we knew were doing another record.”

Regaining control

Armed with the new album, Failure heads out into an unfamiliar landscape.

With three studio albums behind them, a Billboard nod, and plenty of airplay, the band has been around the block. But even with all of those years of success behind them, Edwards says he still considers Failure an independent band.

“All the money that was thrown around in the ’90s doesn’t exist,” he says. “The truth is, you were really just a free agent in this chaotic system that had so little valuation of what you were doing. Now, just being completely on your own, even though there are things about that that are scary… it’s a much better place to be. Artistically, it’s superior.”

Edwards also noted how today’s scene leaves bands budgeting tightly and generally breaking even on tours. But that’s what he prefers.

“In the end, in terms of having a career and a life, I think it’s much better to be really involved in the DIY way and take on all those challenges yourself, have full control of them in your own mind, and not have this parental record label glooming over you. I think that’s a better way to do it.”

A new audience

The business end wasn’t the only facet that changed over the years.

Keeping fans’ needs in mind was tricky when Failure headed back into the studio — not just because of the expectations that followed after releasing “Fantastic Planet” in 1996, but because their fan base took on a new form.

In the ’90s, Failure became associated with Tool almost from the very beginning. They grew close and toured together often. This meant that Failure mostly absorbed the same fan base as Tool.

Edwards says if you asked him what his fans were like a year and a half ago, before their reunion, he would have been completely wrong.

“Back in the ’90s, because we were associated with Tool, we picked up a predominantly male fan base,” he says. “Over time, over word of mouth, people have passed the record onto friends or their children. We have a much lighter audience. When I look out, there’s young people, females, things that I wouldn’t have expected just based off of what the core audience was in the ’90s.”

Regardless of their audience’s background, Edwards says the goal is the same.

“The moments of discovering something and creating something that you really like, that you think says something necessary or has something unique in it, that just makes you as an artist feel a certain way,” he says. “That’s enough for me. That keeps me going. Then, when you add the dimension that it might have an effect on a stranger out in the world, then that’s incredible, too.”

— Fally Afani is a freelance writer and editor of I Heart Local Music. For more local music coverage, visit iheartlocalmusic.com.