brian hefele's untidy space

So, Nine Inch Nails has slowed down for a while, and for that I am thankful. I know this is like heresy to my fellow electronic and industrial fans, but here's how I see things… NIN released Pretty Hate Machine in the late eighties. It was this quirky, somewhat minimalist, danceable industrial album in the vein of a lot of other work that was going on in the scene. It wasn't revolutionary, except for the fact that it hit the mainstream. That isn't to say that it wasn't a good release, or deserving of its popularity - it was (and is) a great album.

Then things changed a bit, and we got Broken, Fixed, The Downward Spiral, and Further Down the Spiral. I lump these all together because of Flood's influence, there's a very particular sound about these two sets that never quite returns to NIN. Broken is fresh, the start of something new. It has a great cover of 'Suck' by Pigface. But then The Downward Spiral happened, and nothing else mattered. To me, this is the best release in the entire NIN discography. I would not be surprised if up until this point, many would agree with me - NIN had a good start, and got better and better with subsequent albums. But then (and this is where my words get treasonous)…

The era of Flood and the sound that went with him (I don't intend to give Flood so much credit, but I do think the collaboration fueled a certain musical momentum) ended, and things slowly sputtered downhill. The Fragile was okay, but it was nowhere near the intensity, the originality, the overall quality of what preceded it. There was clearly much anticipation for the album (it debuted at Billboard 1) but I don't think it really did so much for people as The Downward Spiral did (and, it dropped down the chart right away). Six years later, we got With Teeth, which also debuted at #1. This, I understand - the single, 'The Hand That Feeds' was a strong lead single, catchy to no end. But, as an album, was it great? I would argue that it wasn't even good. And I would argue that the next release album Year Zero wasn't even listenable. And I would argue that the 2008 release, The Slip, the last studio work we currently have out of NIN, was a step in the right direction, back to merely 'not good.' For a while, I had real doubts, but the proof that Reznor was still as talented as he was 15 years ago was the third shining achievement of NIN, the other 2008 album, Ghosts I-IV, a beautiful, haunting megarelease of instrumental tracks.

Now, my point isn't to belittle NIN or Reznor, but merely to say that while he is clearly still a talented musician, for whatever reason, he and his band simply haven't had the best output in recent years. And to that end, I'm glad that NIN has slowed down. But here's the real meat of this article - I'm positively ecstatic about Reznor's most recent project, How to Destroy Angels. Last year, Reznor married a lovely singer (who is also a lovely singer), and now they have this new band, and things are good.

June 1, 2010, How to Destroy Angels released their first release - a free eponymous 6-track EP. The sound is beautiful, haunting, at times militant. The lead track, 'The Space in Between' is nothing if not reminiscent of Portishead's 'Machine Gun.' And, in fact, if I had to compare this release to anything, I think Third is a good place to start. It's not the minimalism of Pretty Hate Machine, but rather a cold, calculated, methodical and melodic minimalism. It doesn't invite listeners, it lures them in with the voice of a siren and then uses the beat like a hammer boarding up the doors and windows, offering no escape. The track 'BBB' offers no refuge from the hypnotic stomps of the titular big black boots, the threatening goose-step of a dominatrix.

Did I really need to dedicate the first four of a six-paragraph review on How to Destroy Angels to increasingly negative minireviews of NIN albums? I think so. I think I was slowly giving up on Reznor, for the reasons outlined above. In my opinion, NIN grew more and more stale. I didn't mention the albums he produced for others, which also fell flat in my opinion (having good tracks, but not holding up as an album). It's like he knew something was missing, but instead of reinventing his notion of a band, he was trying to rework others'. How to Destroy Angels seems like the perfect reinvention of a Trent Reznor band - his talent, under a new set of rules. Just one listen of the single, 'A Drowning' was enough to convince me that How to Destroy Angels was big news, a major renaissance in Reznor's career. After its release, I was pleased to find that the rest of the EP did not disappoint either. Hopefully NIN's next move will take some inspiration from the direction of How to Destroy Angels, but even if it doesn't, we've been afforded a new Reznor release that can honestly hold its own in a fight against The Downward Spiral.

PS, the accompanying identity design and illustrative work for the band and the EP is also some amazing stuff. Kudos to Rob Sheridan who has also consistently done amazing work for NIN.