Welcome to the new Trent. Cleaned up, shorn of hair and clearly into regular trips to the gym, this album reflects the new austerity of his regime. Where guitars snarled and fought at the leash during the harrowing Fragile set, here they are more restrained pulsing away in the mix but never threatening to blow out the speaker cones in a haze of distortion. Equally Trent’s vocal delivery is more relaxed with the emphasis on singing rather than screaming hoarsely into the void. So far so good, yet this turns out to be NIN’s least satisfying release. Perhaps after the artistic apocalypse of The Fragile’s sprawling two-disc set Trent needed the stripped-down approach, but the fact remains that some of the songs here are just not up to the quality expected of a NIN release.
Kicking off with the slow building ‘All the Love in the world’ it’s immediately clear that Trent is in no hurry. When compared to the brutal ‘Somewhat Damaged’ or ‘Mr Self Destruct’ (from The fragile and the downward spiral, respectively) it highlights the new NIN ethic but does not disappoint. Piano and drums are joined by pulsing synth and Trent’s voice moves from frail beauty to snarling confusion throughout. ‘You know what you are’ is initially impressive (the drums courtesy of one Dave Grohl are astonishing) but ultimately, for all its rage, it sounds out of place on the album and rather like a throwback to ‘Starf***ers inc.’ from Fragile. Next up is the collector, a strange number that manages to confuse with its odd timing.
‘The hand that feeds’ follows and, for me at least, is one of the less impressive aspects of the record. It builds on a chunky bass line but sounds suspiciously like NIN on auto-pilot (a friend described it as a band trying to sound like NIN and I find it hard to disagree) and while it is undoubtedly a solid choice for a single it’s hard not to feel let down by something so radio friendly. However both ‘Love is not enough’ and the absurdly catchy ‘Every day is exactly the same’ are fantastic songs, the latter in particular building up over a heavy drum riff and housing a melody that sticks in the brain for s***ing months after the first listen. ‘With teeth’ itself is just plain odd, while ‘Only’ cleverly utilises the apathy it describes but never really captures the imagination leaving the final tracks to close the record on a high note (especially the vicious ‘getting smaller’ and the utterly beautiful ‘right where it belongs’). Ultimately a bad NIN record is still far better than many other bands attempts at a good one, but of all NIN releases this is the one that should be purchased last (well perhaps after the fairly dire Things falling apart remix album) – it just lacks the energy and wild invention that the other releases (including last years phenomenal return to form The Slip) have. Average, but not earth shattering.
