With Teeth
In his most subdued voice, Mr. Reznor promises, "I will be beside you before long" and "We will never die." It could be a love song; it could also be the fulfillment of a suicide pact. Yet the music - a pulsating, dizzying, slowly swelling and abruptly changing drone - reaches for something like a mystical trance, as the sound transcends sociopathy.
Undoubtedly the most humorous moment in Jon Pareles' review of Nine Inch Nails' new album.
Having waited for it like a nervous father-to-be in the maternity ward some five and a half years, I am relieved that "With Teeth" has finally arrived. Moreover, it's a strong effort. [Have a listen at My Space", where the album can be heard in its entirety via the wonder of streaming audio.]
I'm not ready to proclaim "With Teeth" as quite on the level of its predecessor, "The Fragile," a two-disc masterpiece that will forever stand as Trent Reznor's defining work and one of the five greatest and most influential albums of all time. But then, I'm firmly of the opinion that it takes several listens to gain a sufficiently complex understanding of a work before such lofty praise can be issued.
Still, this is Trent doing what only Trent can do and what Trent does best. While "With Teeth" feels very much like a NIN record, it achieves that without sounding tired. Trent doesn't recycle old sounds, he reinvents them.
And yet, at its core "With Teeth" offers an emotionally and spiritually intense journey, evocative of Dante's inferno, but with aggressive guitar riffs and distorted synth pop. It sum, it is uneven in a praiseworthy way that is quintessentially NIN. Quiet to loud, crescendo to anticlimax, plumbing the depths of the human soul to commenting ironically on excessive self-absorption -- it is jarring, discontinuous, deeply contradicted in an immensely satisfying way that intensifies the emotional power of the album.
"Love Is Not Enough" is an eighties power ballad on gloom, "Only" a self-deprecating manipulation of pop melodies and bass lines. "All the Love in the World" is a tortured yet hopeful lament while "Getting Smaller" and "The Hand That Feeds" are melancholily catchy. "The Line Begins to Blur" melodically captures the conflict of its title. "Beside You in Time" offers promise -- will it come to fruition? -- of redemption. "Right Where It Belongs" offers an enigmatic coda.
Really, I have but one disappointment with the album -- that it's not the seminal masterwork "The Fragile" was -- but it hardly seems fair to hold that against any record.
Undoubtedly the most humorous moment in Jon Pareles' review of Nine Inch Nails' new album.
Having waited for it like a nervous father-to-be in the maternity ward some five and a half years, I am relieved that "With Teeth" has finally arrived. Moreover, it's a strong effort. [Have a listen at My Space", where the album can be heard in its entirety via the wonder of streaming audio.]
I'm not ready to proclaim "With Teeth" as quite on the level of its predecessor, "The Fragile," a two-disc masterpiece that will forever stand as Trent Reznor's defining work and one of the five greatest and most influential albums of all time. But then, I'm firmly of the opinion that it takes several listens to gain a sufficiently complex understanding of a work before such lofty praise can be issued.
Still, this is Trent doing what only Trent can do and what Trent does best. While "With Teeth" feels very much like a NIN record, it achieves that without sounding tired. Trent doesn't recycle old sounds, he reinvents them.
And yet, at its core "With Teeth" offers an emotionally and spiritually intense journey, evocative of Dante's inferno, but with aggressive guitar riffs and distorted synth pop. It sum, it is uneven in a praiseworthy way that is quintessentially NIN. Quiet to loud, crescendo to anticlimax, plumbing the depths of the human soul to commenting ironically on excessive self-absorption -- it is jarring, discontinuous, deeply contradicted in an immensely satisfying way that intensifies the emotional power of the album.
"Love Is Not Enough" is an eighties power ballad on gloom, "Only" a self-deprecating manipulation of pop melodies and bass lines. "All the Love in the World" is a tortured yet hopeful lament while "Getting Smaller" and "The Hand That Feeds" are melancholily catchy. "The Line Begins to Blur" melodically captures the conflict of its title. "Beside You in Time" offers promise -- will it come to fruition? -- of redemption. "Right Where It Belongs" offers an enigmatic coda.
Really, I have but one disappointment with the album -- that it's not the seminal masterwork "The Fragile" was -- but it hardly seems fair to hold that against any record.
posted by Alexander Dubcek | 21:37
1 Comments:
Hey, you know, the father doesn't wait out in the maternity ward anymore. Don't go getting the idea that guys get to sit outside and avoid all the "joys" of labor, mister.
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