NINE INCH NAILS:: WITH TEETH REVIEWED
Rating ***
By James Berry for Crud Reviews on April 29, 2005
It would be like opening a bag of crisps to find theyâd dropped spuds from the ingredients list without telling you. Going to bed in your clothes then shedding them all before leaving the house in the morning. Putting your headphones on and not pressing play. You get the idea? Of course Trentâs still a bit testy. About what? About everything, probably. Heâs neither grown up with his audience or out of the blunt angst that made his name in the first place. So of course it comes as no surprise to find him angrily imparting âDONâT! YOU! FUCK! ING! KNOW! WHAT! YOU! ARE!?â as a virtual scythe carves his splintering voice up into tiny electronic shards by track 2. Supply and demand â itâs simple economics. There will always be miserable teenagers. Marilyn Manson probably put it best with âDisposable Teensâ â though that was obviously intended as a clarion call to the disenfranchised, Nine Inch Nailsâ longevity embodies a much truer meaning.
Itâs no surprise to find this obviously isnât as important as his landmark âThe Downward Spiralâ either, it is however a bit of a revelation to discover itâs as vital as it occasionally is, as even the packaging looks tired on first examination. After the overtly comfortable sounding and unnecessarily extended âThe Fragileâ double itâs actually a relief to hear him get back to the point. Even if itâs getting increasingly hard to suspend your disbelief where his wretched toiling is concerned. This album comes at a time when the apprentice once known as Brian Warner was looking like he was no longer the challenger, but as he runs out of tricks Trent Reznor proves that no matter how big your goth stilts or video budgets itâs always worth concentrating on your craft.
There are a whole bunch of pedestrian moments, like the NIN-by-faded-numbers single âThe Hand That Feedsâ, the lumbering âThe Line Begins To Blurâ and fittingly âEveryday Is Exactly the Sameâ. âOnlyâ almost falls into this bracket, but is enough of a Depeche Mode tribute to pull through, and like the rest of the album itâs given â ahem â teeth thanks to Alan Moulderâs excellently bulbous production. Itâs the moments when he lets the beats lead the way though that the record really justifies itself, from the opening hushed breakbeats of âAll The Love In The Worldâ to the stomping Ministry-esque industrialism of âGetting Smallerâ, the frantic crossed-wires, take-no-prisoners onslaught of âYou Know Who You Areâ and the excellent groaning tribal title track. He no longer sounds like a man at breaking point, in fact he sounds like a man in control. Itâs still intermittently thrilling, just not quite so brilliantly and perversely so.