Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com
Showing posts with label Trent Reznor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Trent Reznor. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 24, 2025
Monday, June 16, 2025
Monday, March 30, 2020
Nine Inch Nails – Ghosts V-VI – Album Review
Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com
https://nomoreworkhorse.com/2020/03/30/nine-inch-nails-ghosts-v-vi-album-review/
Tuesday, June 26, 2018
Nine Inch Nails – Bad Witch EP – Review
Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com
https://nomoreworkhorse.com/2018/06/26/nine-inch-nails-bad-witch-ep-review/
Thursday, November 2, 2017
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
Thursday, December 29, 2016
Nine Inch Nails - Not The Actual Events
Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com
https://nomoreworkhorse.com/2016/12/29/nine-inch-nails-not-the-actual-events-review/
Saturday, October 29, 2016
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Album Review: How To Destroy Angels - Welcome Oblivion
Friday, November 23, 2012
EP Review: How To Destroy Angels
2010’s
self-titled EP was the first offering from Trent Reznor and Mariqueen Maandig’s
new venture, How To Destroy Angels. It
starts with the superb industrial electronica of The Space In Between, which
packs an insane amount of brooding tension into three and a half minutes. It’s one of the finest things Reznor has done
in years.
The EP is a
bit of a mixed bag of styles. Normal
service resumes with the scratchy Parasite, probably the track most like Nine
Inch Nails. Much more representative are
the pulsing, dance-tinged Fur Lined and BBB.
The EP finishes with A Drowning, a fine example of icy electronica with
a hint of Shirley Manson about it.
It’s an
interesting diversion for Reznor (this is as diverse as he gets!) if a little
hit and miss.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Album Review: Nine Inch Nails – The Slip
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After the
instrumental diversion of Ghosts I-IV it was back to business as usual on
2008’s The Slip. After a brief
instrumental (999,999), a stomping beat lifted from Pearl Jam’s Last Exit
ushers in a standard issue Trent Reznor angsty belter in the shape of
1,000,000.
After a pair
of tracks in a similar vein (Letting You and Discipline), the album gets a lot
more interesting on fifth track Echoplex.
A mechanized beat opens the track, on which the music is urgent and
insistent, like a darker version of Depeche Mode.
It’s the less
typically NIN tracks which succeed here, sparse piano ballad Light In The Sky
is possibly the quietest ever NIN track, Reznor’s vocals seldom raising above a
whisper. Corona Radiata is a leisurely
seven minute instrumental in the vein of the aforementioned Ghosts, before the
pace picks up again with the pacy The Four Of Us Are Dying.
Although it’s
a relatively short album (for Nine Inch Nails) at just under 45 minutes, it’s
possibly a more enjoyable one than some of their longer efforts.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Album Review: Nine Inch Nails – With Teeth
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.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Album Review: Nine Inch Nails – The Fragile
1999’s The
Fragile was Nine Inch Nails’ first album in 5 years, and it’s a sprawling beast
of a double album. Split into Left and
Right discs, there’s a LOT to get your teeth into.
There are some
great tunes buried under Trent Reznor's many ‘noise’ experiments – with some really big
choruses, such as the Bond-evoking Day The World Went Away, the lengthy We’re
In This Together and the magnificent brooding of the title track. There is time for some moody funk with the
instrumental La Mer, more fully realized as a proper song later on Into the
Void.
There’s tons
and tons of moody atmosphere on instrumentals like The Frail and the excellent
final track, Ripe [With Decay]. However
much of the rest of the album is full of shouty, noisy brooding tracks, and at
a running total of over 100 minutes over two discs, it makes the album exhausting
to listen to.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Album Review: Nine Inch Nails – The Downward Spiral
Trent Reznor released what could be
considered his ‘opus’ with Nine Inch Nails in 1994. The album is a hard-edged, ‘industrial’ album
full of pounding beats, distorted guitars and Reznor screaming blue murder. It opens with Mr Self Destruct which follows
this template to the letter, and is followed by the much quieter Piggy, a
creepy, almost whispered track with Reznor singing profundities such as
“nothing can stop me now cos I don’t care anymore”.
Heresy is much dancier and more
electronic though it still allows for Reznor to scream “your God is dead! And
no one cares!”, which actually sounds awesome.
After the equally pounding March of the Pigs the intensity reduces
slightly for the slow-grind of Closer.
It opens with a squelching beat, possible lifted from Iggy Pop’s
Nightclubbing and most of the track consists of this plus bass and a great
vocal from Reznor, dialing up the tension as he sings “I wanna f**k you like an
animal”. It’s a wonderful exercise in
creeping tension while all the while remaining melodic and danceable.
Ruiner and The Becoming which follow
this track sound suitably foreboding and dramatic. It’s not all screaming intensity. A Warm Place is a moment of keyboard-led
tranquility, while final track Hurt is the creeping ballad which provided such
potent material for Johnny Cash in his final years.
Possibly the Queen Is Dead of
industrial thrash, it’s probably the definitive Nine Inch Nails album, and a
thrilling ride.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
EP Review: Nine Inch Nails – Broken
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Nine Inch Nails released the Broken EP in 1992. In comparison to the
not-exactly-easy-listening Pretty Hate Machine, this is an outright aural
assault. After the barely there
instrumental Pinion, the insistent beats that open Wish lay the path for
bludgeoning riffs that slay all before them as Trent Reznor howls his angsty
lyrics.
The rockisms of Last give way to the moody instrumental piece Help
Me I Am In Hell which creates a dystopian atmosphere. This mood is shattered by the distorted
torment of Happiness In Slavery which pounds and pounds for five minutes before
the breakneck beats and anguished shouting of Gave Up.
There are 2 further ‘bonus tracks’, an industrial version of Adam
Ant’s Physical, and a Pigface (?) cover – Suck, both of which dial the
distortion down a little but are still riff-heavy tracks. Suck sees a slight return to the
electro-style of their debut album.
It’s the sound of a man screaming and raging against the world. Great, if you’re in that kind of mood.
Monday, April 2, 2012
Album Review: Nine Inch Nails – Pretty Hate Machine
Nine Inch Nails’ debut came out in 1989. The late 1980s wasn’t a great time for guitar
based ‘rock’, so some of the sounds on this album have that kind of processed
‘rawwwkk’ guitar which was doing the rounds then.
Opening track Head Like A Hole sets the tone, like an angry, rocky
version of Depeche Mode. Trent Reznor
spits out lines like “bow down before the one you serve” over pounding beats
and a great bassline. The lyrics are
sort of text-book angst but just as well the songs are strong. Terrible Lie (terrible title!) features some
great oppressive synths driving the song forward.
The fretless bass and processed guitar of Sanctified roots it in the
late 1980s, but Something I Can Never Have, is an early Reznor dark
ballad. It’s almost entirely keyboard
based and features a great vocal and the occasional dodgy lyric (“grey would be
the colour if I had a heart”).
The next two tracks are best described as fairly full-on, Kinda I
Want To is like a dancey Depeche Mode on steroids, while Sin is almost like an
assault through beats. You’ll want to
invade somewhere after listening to it.
Final track Ringfinger could almost be a Hacienda-style Madchester
dance track but for the angsty singing and guitars. Things would get a lot more ‘industrial’ from
here on.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
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