Trent Reznor’s
first Nine Inch Nails album of the millennium, and first for six years had a
tough job to attempt to recapture the God of Angst position he occupied in the
nineties. The album opens not with a
bang but with the stealthy, cruel slash that is All The Love In The World, all
muted synths and brooding atmosphere (foreshadowing his solo, soundtrack work)
along with skittering beats, as the track builds into an almost gloom-disco
anthem. It works really well. Normal service resumes with You Know What You
Are, boasting an ENORMOUS chorus (“DON’T YOU F**KING KNOW WHAT YOU ARE!”), one
of many tracks where it seems like Reznor is trying to regain his position from
younger pretenders.
The brutal
stomp of The Collector and the industrial-dance of The Hand That Feeds are a
little obvious, NIN-by-numbers. Better
is the Depeche Mode-like (yet lyrically unimaginative) Every Day Is Exactly The
Same (more cruel folk would paraphrase the title as a metaphor for the album)
and the title track (apart from Reznor’s singing of the chorus “with-ah
teeth-ah”).
Where he does
attempt new ground has very mixed results – the poppy, grooving Only is a
little repetitive – while Getting Smaller comes across like NIN covering the Pixies’
Planet of Sound. Reznor’s swearing on
the former track (and others throughout the album) doesn’t particularly suit
him at this point in his career. Later,
The Line Begins To Blur is like the Rolling Stones gone industrial and doesn’t
quite work.
He saves the
best two tracks for last. Beside You In
Time is a fine, pounding, electro track which threatens to explode but never
quite does, heightening the tension, while tradition dictates that the final
track, Right Where It Belongs is a brooder in the vein of Hurt.
Perhaps he
tries too hard. The album lasts 55
minutes but feels twice as long, with a lot of self-conscious aggression.
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