What to do with Trent Reznor?
Pressing 40 and still venting, still huffing with a rage that occasionally borders on comical. It'd be blasphemous if Reznor were anything but angry despite him being responsible for one of the most beautiful pieces of synth music ever recorded in 1994s A Warm Place.
He only delays the anger momentarily on With Teeth, Nine Inch Nails' first album of completely original material since 1999's The Fragile.
In some respects this is the most enjoyable work Nine Inch Nails have ever recorded, the sounds are richer and the hooks, when present, are some of the biggest Reznor has ever offered. The opener, All The Love In The World takes more from Kid A than it does The Downward Spiral. It's a glitchy and sombre yet oddly entertaining opening. The middle piano run falls in to the arms of a jamming and hypnotic beat created by layered vocals and a vibrant castanet - yes, a castanet on a Nine Inch Nails record. But don't fret gothic children of the world, even when I mention the dance house beat that finishes All The Love for there are plenty of guitars, layers and layers of them in fact.
The soothing piano is torn apart by the techno-hypno-hyper fuzz of You Know What You Are. Reznor's voice climbs over anything even threatening subtlety. Here's the raged and ragged Reznor but it's somehow more cathartic than he has been in almost a decade. The hyperkinetic drumming of Jerome Dillon spits against pining piano, it all sounds like the best Nine Inch Nails album since 1994. When a man is still angry at 40 and wanting to share, who am I to ask him to hold it in. What to do with Trent Reznor - let him run wild, it's a fine result he brings back.
3.5/4
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