NINE INCH NAILS

Reviewed:
- Pretty Hate Machine (1989)
- The Downward Spiral (1994)
- Further Down the Spiral (1995, remix album)
- The Fragile (1999)
- And All that Could Have Been (2002, live album)
- With Teeth (2005)
- Year Zero (2007)
- Ghosts I-IV (2008)
- The Slip (2008)
- Hesitation Marks (2013)


PRETTY HATE MACHINE          1989          (Island)

- Standouts: 'Head Like a Hole', 'Sanctified', 'Something I Can Never Have', 'Terrible Lie', 'Sin', 'Ringfinger' 

You already know that Trent Reznor and his project Nine Inch Nails is synonymous for familiarizing music fans with the whole 'industrial' genre. Bands like Ministry and KMFDM had been around longer, but I wouldn't be surprised if NIN were the first 'band' that people think of when they take industrial into account. I certainly do. Pretty Hate Machine is obviously Trent's first NIN record, and one that he supposedly made during studio down-time while he was working as a handyman at the same place. Pretty impressive then, that this album went on to be critically acclaimed and NIN a musical phenomenon...

Obviously much of the music within Pretty Hate Machine deals with electronic sounds and synths to go with the actual musical instruments. I think we can agree that a lot of electronic-based music ages quite poorly depending on the era, but this record still sounds pretty good overall. Sure, you can hear that the album is a product of the late 80's at times, but one song in particular still sounds fresh today: the haunting, piano and synth-driven 'Something I Can Never Have'. That tune is a masterpiece if I say so myself. The heavy dance rock of opener 'Head Like a Hole' and the bass guitar-led 'Sanctified' are amazing songs too, and have aged just fine. I don't think any of these tracks are bad really, I mean, 'Sin', 'Ringfinger' and 'Terrible Lie' are all classics too, but time hasn't really been as kind to them as much as the first three songs I listed. That's not necessarily a negative I guess, I think it's just something that has to be considered before listening. Some people (idiots, mostly) won't listen to anything more than a few years old, and if you've never heard this album before, I don't think anybody would guess the album to be released later than the early 90's. It sounds distinctively different to anything else Trent would later record due to the synths and effects that were available at the time. Having said all this, I honestly find Pretty Hate Machine to be completely unique when compared to it's competition at the time (not that it had much competition), and the album is essential if you're looking to get into Trent's music, though it probably isn't the best one to start with.  
Adam's rating: 8.6/10

THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL          1994          (Interscope)

- Standouts: Everything! 

Fuck me, this album is incredible! Other than Trent's vocals and depressing lyrical themes (this whole record is a concept album based around a bloke who eventually tries to commit suicide, hence the album's title), The Downward Spiral is a huge improvement on the already-acclaimed debut. What you have is an incredibly diverse set of timeless tunes that have stood the test of time. The whole album is full of great ideas and instrumentation, from the schizophrenic opener 'Mr. Self Destruct', the mellow 'Piggy', the pumping electronic rocker 'Heresy' (complete with the distorted chorus 'GOD IS DEAD! AND NO ONE CARES! IF THERE IS A HELL, I'LL SEE YOU THERE!'), the up-tempo industrial metal of 'March of the Pigs', the twisted sexuality of 'Closer' (NIN's most successful song), the heavily-distorted murkiness of 'Big Man With a Big Gun', the ambient instrumental 'A Warm Place' and the sorrowful acoustic masterpiece 'Hurt' (which a lot of people seem to think was written and recorded by Johnny Cash before Trent Reznor, which isn't true of course). The Downward Spiral is the pinnacle of industrial records.
Adam's rating: 9.4/10

FURTHER DOWN THE SPIRAL          1995          (Interscope)

The majority of this CD consists of remixes of songs from The Downward Spiral, with an impressive list of contributors: Aphex Twin, Dave Navarro, J.G. Thirlwell etc. all worked on this compilation, but I don't like it overall. The remixes of tracks like 'Piggy', 'The Downward Spiral', 'Heresy' and 'Ruiner' are too 'dancy' and happy for my tastes. That and they don't sound anything like the songs they're based on either. The live version of 'Hurt' is great, but these kind of companion remix discs aren't for me, and I know Nine Inch Nails have released about three of them over the years, for three different studio records (The Downward Spiral, The Fragile and Year Zero). I don't remember why I picked it up, I guess it must have been on sale or something. Die hard Trent Reznor fans will get a kick out of this, but I guess I'm not a big enough NIN fan to really find it interesting. I suppose one thing I do like about it is that the whole package is more than long enough to be a regular studio effort, so I can't deny that a lot of effort was put into it.
Adam's rating: 6/10

THE FRAGILE          1999          (Interscope)

- Standouts: 'The Day the World Went Away', 'The Way Out is Through', 'We're in this Together', 'StarFuckers, Inc.', 'Into the Void' 

Trent's double album, made during the peak of his drug addiction and troubles with anxiety. Did it have an impact on the music? Well yeah, I guess it did, but The Fragile is, like it's amazing predecessor, a pretty diverse offering overall. The songs are often less structured and feel more experimental this time, more like art rock than industrial.

There's some weird shit going on, like 'Pilgrimage', which...well, I can't even describe that one. Many of the tracks seem to rely on ambiance too, and kind of gives the album an odd, almost surreal vibe at times - especially in the second half of the record. 'The Day the World Went Away', 'The Great Below', 'The Way Out is Through', 'I'm Looking Forward to Joining You, Finally' and 'Ripe (With Decay)' all use ambient keyboards to some extent, even if some of them aren't built around ambiance for their entire lengths. There is also an almost smooth jazz/lounge-like song on the piano-led 'La Mer'. Even the industrial tracks aren't structured in an accessible way, not necessarily a bad thing - in fact, songs like 'No, You Don't, 'The Fragile', 'Into the Void', 'Complication', 'Underneath it All' and the singles 'StarFuckers, Inc.' and 'We're in this Together' are all great, they just require multiple listens to really take them in properly. And that's both this album's strength and weakness. On the one hand, I like how avant-garde The Fragile is; it's one of those albums that really requires you to properly sit down and focus on the music - there's a lot going on throughout the entire record, and you'll probably notice new things you didn't initially hear the first few times you listen to it. But then on the other hand, those factors also make The Fragile my least played NIN album - and because it's also the only double album, that makes it the longest by far. When I'm in the right mood, this thing is hugely enjoyable from start to finish across both discs. If I'm not in the right mood, it just makes me want to put The Downward Spiral on after the first few tracks.
Adam's rating: 7.5/10

AND ALL THAT COULD HAVE BEEN           2002          (Interscope)

Two versions of this live record, a single CD release that just features the 18-track live album And All That Could Have Been itself (various performances from the Fragility 2.0 tour, can't find any more specific info sorry), and a two CD 'deluxe edition' which features said live disc and the Still supplement, apparently full of new renditions of oldies. I own the single-CD release in case you couldn't tell. In fact, I think I bought the album shortly after I saw them live for the second time in 2014. Most live albums start with a sort of 'fade-in' sound of the crowd before the band actually begins, but this one just jumps straight into 'Terrible Lie' the second you hit play which was kind of odd I thought. I've only listened to this a handful of times because it sounds very, very close to the original studio performances save for the crowd of course. I dunno, but I think actually seeing them live is superb, but just listening to them on a live album isn't terribly exciting. I'm surprised there hasn't been another live album since 2002, 'cos they technically only had three full-length studio albums out at the time, now it's eight (well, that's including Ghosts I-IV, an ambient project)!
Adam's rating: 7.3/10

WITH TEETH          2005          (Interscope)

- Standouts: 'All the Love in the World', 'You Know What You Are', 'The Hand that Feeds', 'Every Day is Exactly the Same', 'Sunspots'

There was a seven year gap between The Fragile and With Teeth, and Trent had cleaned up a lot by this point. The album is a bit less crazy and avant-garde than the last, and it shows. It starts off with the surprisingly moody 'All the Love in the World', but the next few tracks, 'You Know What You Are', 'The Collector' and the brilliantly catchy single 'The Hand that Feeds' are much more up-beat and more akin to songs like 'March of the Pigs', 'Head Like a Hole' and what have you. In fact, half of this album basically consists of up-beat industrial/electronic rock tunes while the other half is the expected dark and depressing numbers that Trent still has a thing about writing. 'Sunspots' fits better into the latter category to begin with, and in my humble opinion, it's one of the most underrated NIN songs of all time. The song kind of builds slowly into this huge chorus that I just love. And they never seem to play it live! Funnily enough, when I saw them in 2014 after the Hesitation Marks album was released, they rearranged the actual music of 'Sanctified' from the first record (which now features an absolutely killer bass line, I really hope Trent ends up recording this new version in the studio...) and used samples from 'Sunspots' towards the end of the song. Needless to say, it sounded good. Oh, and 'Every Day is Exactly the Same' is a classic too.

I like With Teeth overall, but I must admit that some of these songs, namely one's towards the end of the record e.g. 'Beside You in Time' and 'The Line Begins' to Blur' never seem to hold my interest. The album is far easier to listen to than the last, at least for the average listener, but I can't seem to decide whether or not I actually prefer it or not. My copy features two bonus tracks, 'Home' and 'Right Where it Belongs (Version 2)'.
Adam's rating: 7.7/10

YEAR ZERO          2007         (Interscope)

- Standouts: Everything except maybe 'In this Twighlight' and 'Another Version of the Truth'.

Ah, now Year Zero might just be my favourite Nine Inch Nails album behind The Downward Spiral! Other than 'Another Version of the Truth', Trent Reznor seemed to ditch the dark and depressing sounds he loves to dabble with completely and instead gives us an excellent electronic-tinged rock record. Sure, there's some odd instrumentation and beats at times on tracks like 'Zero-Sum', 'Vessel' and 'The Greater Good' (as expected with a NIN album - and this isn't a bad thing by the way), but I've played songs off this album to all kinds of people with different music tastes, and it's gotten a thumbs up from basically everyone. There aren't many singles - the exceptional 'Survivalism' is the only one in fact - and that baffles me considering how infectious and listenable songs like 'The Beginning of the End', 'Me, I'm Not', 'The Good Soldier', 'Capital G', 'God Given' and 'Meet Your Master' are. In fact, there isn't a single dodgy track to be found on this album, even if a couple of the later ones aren't quite as memorable. All in all though, this is an amazing record.
Adam's rating: 9/10


GHOSTS I-IV          2008         (Pinnacle Records)
- Standouts: Er...
Dunno about you, but I wasn't surprised that Trent went out and made an instrumental album. Seems like exactly the sort of thing we'd eventually see from him. What I didn't expect was nearly 2 hours of vocal-less music across 36 tracks in 4 parts. Much of the music here consists of instrumentation that you'd expect to hear on a 'normal' NIN record (well, in terms of ambiance that is) - from industrial beats, weird schizophrenic electronica along with ambiance (A LOT of ambiance!) and pianos etc.. Don't expect to hear any prominent guitar riffs or anything, though there is guitar scattered throughout the album. Meh, I dunno what to think of this. Sure, the music is good as far instrumentals go, but I don't find myself in many situations where I actually feel like listening to 2 hours of, well, ambiance. I don't have much use for it. Can't listen to it in the gym, don't wanna hear it in the car and I can rarely be arsed to sit down at home and do nothing but listen to it either. This was a gap-filler for me in all honesty, and I don't really consider it to be a true NIN record as stupid as that sounds.
Adam's rating: 6/10

THE SLIP          2008          (The Null Corporation)

- Standouts: 'Echoplex', 'Head Down', 'Lights in the Sky' 

Even though I have a number of digital albums that I don't actually have a physical copy of on my PC, I don't include them on this site. I figured I'd make an exception with The Slip however, just 'cos I've already started talking about Nine Inch Nails. It was actually released as a free download from the official website for at least a couple of years. I first saw the band at Sonisphere Festival 2009 in Knebworth - I'd never listened to a single NIN tune in my life at the time save for 'Closer', but I was dead impressed with their performance, even if it was a very mellow one (when they played 'Something I Can Never Have', you could easily chat to the person next to you at normal volume...and I was relatively close to the stage). Just my luck then, that The Slip had been released the previous year and was still available to download for nothing.

Listening to this record again for the first time in I don't know how long was both a good an bad thing. Some of the more up-beat electro-rockers were better than I remembered, like 'Echoplex', 'Head Down' and 'Discipline'. The dark piano ballad 'Lights in the Sky' is great too,but for me that's partly due to the memorable performance at Sonisphere. On the other hand, I kinda feel like Trent was at a writing stalemate,like much of the music here is predictable by NIN standards. Hell, there's a hilarious parody on YouTube of how Trent goes about writing songs these days (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSXE5np_Tk) - it's not 100% accurate of course, but it does kinda feel like at least one track from every album is written in this way. The whole album is also shorter than usual - there's only 10 tracks, and the last album to feature that number was the debut. I don't think this is particularly an issue though because like Year Zero, The Slip is a pretty straightforward, listenable NIN record with less crazy Downward Spiral/The Fragile type-moments to be found. 'Course, the only problem that I don't think it worked as well this time 'round, especially when compared to Year Zero or even With Teeth. It's not a bad album by any means, but it sort of feels like a bunch of leftover ideas from the previous two, thrown into one record. 

In addition to the free download, the album was released on CD, naturally. It seems to come with an added DVD, and the average price seems to be around 12 quid. Maybe I'll eventually get around to purchasing a CD copy to go in the collection if the price is right. Oh, I'd also like to mention that the same year, Trent released Ghosts I-IV. If I remember correctly, part one was released for free as a download too. I couldn't get into it, so I didn't bother buying the full record. Again, if I see a cheap copy some time, maybe I'll pick that up as well. 

Edit: I did eventually find a physical release for a reasonable price.
Adam's rating: 6.7/10

HESITATION MARKS          2013          (The Null Corporation)

- Standouts: 'Copy of A', 'Came Back Haunted', 'Satellite', 'Various Methods of Escape' 

This album is definitely stronger than The Slip, but I wouldn't really put it above With Teeth or The Fragile either. The second time I saw NIN (this time in Cardiff), it was in 2014 so obviously they were promoting Hesitation Marks and I will say that the songs here sounded as good live as any of the oldies within the set, especially the beats of 'Copy of A' and the ultimately infectious 'Came Back Haunted'. My biggest issue with this album is that I think it's built a little too much around electronica and there aren't really enough physical instruments to be heard on the songs. There aren't really any good or memorable bass/guitar lines at all, but I will say that the album is at least more memorable than the last one. 'Satellite' and 'Various Methods of Escape' are really great tunes, the latter sorta reminds me of certain parts of 'Everyday is Exactly the Same' and 'Sunspots' from With Teeth. On the whole I guess I was sightly disappointed with this one even though I still like it for the most part. It doesn't help that outside of the industrial genre, I don't really listen to any electronic music - to me, this feels more like an electronica album than it does industrial.
Adam's rating: 6.5/10