Review: Hesitation Marks

Hesitation Marks
Nine Inch Nails
2013

Nine Inch Nails is back.

This is a phrase that has been repeated often since Trent Reznor announced the return of Nine Inch Nails to the touring circuit earlier in the year. Generally speaking, with a tour comes a new album and this is where my review starts.

2013 presents the end of that self-imposed touring exile that Trent declared a few years ago. In retrospect, it wasn't that pretty long gap from touring we expected but it was still painful in some ways. Everyone bitched and moaned about the (temporary) end of touring but ultimately accepted it. And we were all mollified as Trent gave us the scores to The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. And some people really dig How to Destroy Angels. I personally can't get into them but that's because my brain is still wired in a way that connects "Trent Reznor" to "Nine Inch Nails." Anything else just doesn't truly register unless the mix is intriguing but that's another story for another time.

2013 also represents a standard gap in the Nine Inch Nails discography because 5 years is the average wait time between albums. So the wait is really nothing new. As is the content on Hesitation Marks.

Now, when I say this I don't mean he just copied and pasted everything so it sounds exactly like the older albums. What I mean is that it's a return to form that perfectly calls back early NIN while still being fresh (though admittedly this is due to the fact that we've all been craving more NIN material for years now and the hunger for it became more savage when it was announced that a new album would be released).

Hesitation Marks covers a nice range of what we've come to expect from NIN despite covering old ground thematically. Again, this isn't really a bad thing because it's always good to be understood and Trent always does a great job putting into words what your savage snarls and cries cannot communicate clearly. And despite repetitions in themes- Trent has always done this but he's always done it in a way that continues to be fresh and keeps it from being stale. It isn't just slight tweaks here and there to get by on technicalities, it's always doing something different to the envelope and surprising you with the result.

Musically, Hesitation Marks could fit almost anywhere. It could easily sound like a follow-up or even predecessor to most albums in terms of structure and tone, among other things. Hesitation Marks harkens back to previous albums with: the seething, snarling, danceable nature of Pretty Hate Machine; the cohesive, articulate, and concentrated fury of that old friend who understands you (The Downward Spiral); the unleashing of the intrinsic animality achieved by stripping structures down to more base elements (With Teeth), the tasteful balance of catchiness and bleakness (The Slip); and haunting atmospheric presentation (Ghosts I-IV).

Hesitation Marks represents a great blend of what makes Nine Inch Nails a unique musical entity.

I realize how much I'm hyping up the album but after repeated listens, this is exactly what it is to me. Now, you could dismiss my claims as me just being excited about the concert for which I already purchased my tickets to, or the fact that I've been anticipating new Nine Inch Nails material (and tour) for a while, and you could be right but if that were the case, this review would have ended with that last bit above.

And as you can gather, this is not the case and there is more to say.

While Hesitation Marks does indeed do a good job of tastefully treading older ground, it doesn't do so without flaws. Shades of The Fragile are still found in that some songs do feel like they run longer than they should and as such falter in the creation of a haunting atmospheric experience. They feel like they're just repeating themselves at points, or that they should have ended maybe a minute ago. This creates a degree of tediousness. It also carries traces of Year Zero. Now, I liked that album but the detachment from "standard NIN" is what makes it something of an odd duck with me. As such, there is something about Hesitation Marks that carries that at times makes the album feels detached and less personal. This could probably have something to do with the tracks that often feel like they should have ended sooner and unfortunately teeter on that line that divides running time into "juuuust riiiight" and "shoulda trimmed it down."

When all is said and done, Hesitation Marks is a damn fine album and without a doubt declares

Nine Inch Nails is back.

9/10

Review: The Slip

The Slip

Nine Inch Nails

2008

I am biased when I say that 2008 was a good year for Nine Inch Nails, from my perspective at least. Touring, 2 albums within the span of 2 y- hold the phone! 3 albums within the span of 2 years and this is where my review starts.

2008 was indeed a good year for Nine Inch Nails. But an even better year for fans. Instead of being treated to a routine wait period of at least 5 years, the waits were considerably shorter: With Teeth was released in 2005 and people were shocked by Year Zero in 2007 and even more surprised by Ghosts I-IV in 2008. Imagine their faces when a few months later they got The Slip, for free!

Get it? Trent gave people The Slip! Ha!

Joking aside, I was just as shocked by such a release schedule. Granted, it's been done before but for someone like Trent Reznor to deliver material so frequently was almost unheard of. What makes things more interesting is that The Slip was written and recorded in three weeks and still stands head and shoulders with the rest of the Nine Inch Nails discography because it blends in quite well with the rest of the Nine Inch Nails discography. The themes frequently covered are present (though one can argue that there is a change of sorts, or at the very least the approach has shifted through the lyrics) and the fact that the production was basically rushed only enhances that which Trent Reznor articulates so goddamn well every time (angst, anger, tension, among other things). Letting You, Discipline, and 1,000,000 to name a few. (The latter two I remember very clearly as being played live in 2008 during a concert for the Lights in the Sky tour because I had to stop myself from shrieking like an excited schoolgirl, as they opened the show.)

The music on The Slip tends to vary from "standard NIN" to "Year Zero level NIN" to more "'casual listener'* friendly NIN". That's to say: while Trent maintains his violent poetic delivery of eloquent snarling, he still manages to create something that can serve as an introduction for anyone who wants to check out Nine Inch Nails but is turned off by a few seconds of anything preceding a cover of Johnny Cash's "I Hurt Myself Today to See If I Still Feel" and "I Want to Fuck You Like an Animal", and of course "Will You Bite the Hand that Feeds You". The Slip is catchy as fuck, while still maintaining a bleak and haunting atmosphere for the listener when it counts: Lights in the Sky.

Regarding that bit of facetiousness above: face it. Some people are like that and are unwilling to dive into something if it appears more bleak than beautiful because they'll focus too much on the bleak and "he keeps saying fuck over and over", rather than simply accepting that this form of expression speaks volumes and resonates with a ton of people, and for that reason IS beautiful. Bleak is beautiful sometimes, friend.

By that same vein, The Slip is an album that only proves some people are fucking geniuses. The album straddles a fine line on which the music shifts stylistically to appear to belong to a different album and band altogether but make you think they're ripping off Trent Reznor. Along that same line, you recognize elements in style and delivery from previous albums (though not right away on the first listen). By that, I mean, The Slip slips in (Jesus, did I really write that?) over time to deliver a satisfying listening experience that snarls "This is Nine Inch Nails."

*I couldn't think of a term that wasn't "full of foot in mouth."

8/10

Review: Ghosts I-IV

Ghosts I-IV

Nine Inch Nails

2008

It was a few weeks before September of 2008 when I listened to Ghosts I-IV for the first time. It was probably late at night, as is often the case with the things I do. I'm just more of a night person, especially these days but that's not the point. The point is that I first listened to Ghosts I-IV sometime in late 2008 at night and this is where my review starts.

When one thinks "Nine Inch Nails", a lot of things come to mind. One of the few things that don't come to mind is "an instrumental album." That being said, it's interesting to listen to Ghosts I-IV for that reason alone. It's not exactly what you'd expect from Trent Reznor but that's by no means a bad thing. In fact, it's in many ways a good thing as it expands his range and audience. More people listening to Nine Inch Nails is always a good thing. More people listening to any band is often a good thing, despite what hipster and music snobs may tell you.

I tend to think of Ghosts I-IV as more of a venture into quieter Nine Inch Nails territory rather than a radical departure. If anything, the listener can make the listening experience more or less of what Reznor may have intended. The energy is still there only in a different exploration of what one has come to expect from the name Nine Inch Nails. By energy, of course, I mean the sonic elements that we've come to expect that have always spoken for us what we can't articulate. You can still hear the ferocity and ire simmering, the only difference is you don't have Trent Reznor snarling something bizarrely poetic this time around. He lets the instruments do all the talking.

It defies expectations that have been set by preceding albums though to be fair, there have been shades and hints from the very beginning. Some are more obvious than others ("A Warm Place") and others have been not as blatant ("That's What I Get"). And it had always been a wish of mine to listen to Trent Reznor do something entirely instrumental. I'm sure others might have been keen on seeing an instrumental release by Reznor, and they got it with Ghosts I-IV (and would get it again with the scores for The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo).

I find Ghosts I-IV to be excellent reading music. Especially when re-reading Neil Gaiman's Sandman from time to time. The fact that I can listen to this album and read is what makes it one of my favorite instrumental albums of all time. It can set the tone for a number of different books and stories without distracting you from what you're reading (thereby allowing you to gain control over your focus.)

If I really had to think of one flaw is that sometimes the pieces bleed into each other in an undecipherable blur. The distinction isn't there sometimes unless you actually look at the track name (the fact that it's all in numbers makes no impact or difference to me). Though I'd imagine one would have a hell of a time trying to think of titles for every piece. As such, it becomes very easy for Ghosts I-IV to disappear into the background though it ultimately does a good job at haunting you because you don't always have to rely on spoken words to carry a message.

8/10