CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States

There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
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Nine Inch Nails With Teeth Review

Tuesday, May 31, 2005

this entry brought to you by franz ferdinand, "cheating on you"




What a difference five years makes. The Fragile, Trent Reznor's double-disc magnum opus was released at number one on the Billboard charts, critically applauded (it was named album of the year and Nine Inch Nails band of the year by several publications, Spin included), and the accompanying Fragility tour was one of the most successful of 2000.

Fast forward five years, with the release of With Teeth, Nine Inch Nails' fourth full-length release, and the first since The Fragile. He is triumphantly adored by niche music magazines, yes, but the mainstream largely ignores him or relegates him to second-grade status. Every review and article I read mentions the disappointing sales of The Fragile, one publication saying the lyrics were "generic" and the songs "meandering", Blender even going so far as to have called it "tripe".

Of course, mentioning how disappointing The Fragile's sales were is a bit besides the point. of course it didn't come anywhere close to the multi-platinum success of The Downward Spiral. I'll also bet Pearl Jam, one of the biggest sellers in the early 90s, didn't sell nearly as many copies of Binaural, their 2000 release, than they did of Vitalogy, their 1994 release. I'm even willing to go so far as to say that I'll bet any early to mid 90's band didn't see the success they once had five years later. The music industry's tastes change quicker than a bored teenager, which is partially because the consumers of the music industry are bored teenagers. Blender magazine pointed out that part of Reznor's problem is that he's got too many insecurities and self doubts and needless feelings to keep his credibility that it hampers his songwriting, which is probably true. But wouldn't you have insecurities if your critically acclaimed, number one selling record that kicked off an immensely successful world tour was constantly held under your nose as "disappointing"?

Which brings us to With Teeth, Reznor's long-awaited follow-up to The Fragile. It's an album full of self-obsession, which isn't that unusual, but when you look at With Teeth's anti-hype, songs like the mysterious, haunting "All The Love in the World" that later turns into a NIN-style gospel love-in ("No one's heard a single thing I've said"), the yearning, driving "Everyday is Exactly the Same" ("I think I used to have a voice/ Now I never make a sound"), the migraine-like, self flagellating dirge of "The Lines Begin to Blur" ("The more I stay in here/ the more I disappear") start to make sense.

The album is a bit of an oddity. It's a much more straight-forward rock n' roll album than anything he's done, but so uniquely Nine Inch Nails it reminds one that, no matter how many imitators the late 90's spawned, there really is nobody in the music industry doing what Reznor is doing, especially today. The textures and studio wizardry seem spare (unlike The Fragile, where every single sound had some studio tweak or another), the production minimalist for Reznor. The songwriting is more aggressive and deliberate than usual and Dave Grohl's kinetic, firecracker drums (along with Jerome Dillon, the drummer from NIN's Fragility tour and the only holdover from any of the previous eras) have the affect of a freight train, driving the music down a much more direct, turbulent path which, honestly, is very refreshing. With Teeth feels much more live and spontaneous then The Fragile, more raw, more stark than even the Broken EP's fistful-of-hate. Yet without an instrumental, a mainstay on Nine Inch Nails releases since the aforementioned EP, it loses a bit of introspection and thoughfulness.

In fact, when I think about With Teeth as a whole, something feels missing. The critics might be looking at the numbers of the past few years and not actually how people reacted when the album came out, and this seems to bring up a valid point: cultural relevency is important to an album's worth. Had With Teeth come out three years ago, I would've declared it an epiphany. It's not that it feels too close of a sequel to The Fragile, or that it feels, in computer geek speak, like a glorified expansion pack. It doesn't. It's different enough to warrant its existence, and comfortable enough for a Nine Inch Nails fan to call his own.

The problem is that it's missing the urgency that I know Reznor was shooting for and would have had had it come out a few years ago. It's missing that certain something that would have been relevent in 2002; the feeling of being the right album at the right time. As a follow-up to The Fragile's technical marvel, the contrast of this one's comparative single-minded approach would have hit me right where I needed to be hit. Five years of time to wait for new music calls for a triumphant event; With Teeth is not that event. But I hate looking at music like that. I like to listen to a record and ask myself is it good? The unfortunate part is that, as a human, it's difficult to detatch timing and relevency from the equation. This is the reason some records are dismissed upon their release and discovered years later to be a "forgotten gem"; because their timing wasn't right. Relevency, here, is not a downfall, but that difficult quality that seems to not quite satisfy seems to definitely be part of it. But while listening to the record, trying to word exactly what it is that disappoints me about With Teeth, I find that I'm completely hooked to it. When I listen, only fires and oncoming traffic seem more important.

With Teeth is not a musical breakthrough, but it is an incredible, tight, well constructed rock record-- one of the best and definitely most unique in years. The production is as minutely detailed as always without being obsessive. The Fragile felt like Reznor could've spent 5 more years on it if someone hadn't convinced him to stop; this feels purposefully scaled back, it has a feeling of letting the songs be what they want to be. While his previous record was a successful attempt at making the perfect art-rock record, this has a very take-me-as-I-am feeling. Reznor's lyrics continue to be obsessed with himself and deeply personal withle simoultaneously not giving any details about what he's talking about. Harsher critics have said that his words are immature and sound like they come from a high schooler's notebook, which isn't exactly true and is partially the point. Within a listen or two you already know the lyrics, and you sing along; they feel personal to you as a listener, even though you had nothing to do with them. Here Reznor allows himself to have fun, using weird, loose lyrics that he would've never used before. His arms go "flip flop" on the dirty, arena-rockin' bombast of "Getting Smaller", and later he even allows himself to let out an enthusiastic "uh-huh!" He shrieks that he's a big boy and he will swallow it all on the stomp-and-snare whine of "The Collector". "The Hand That Feeds", the album's riffy, head-bopping lead single, is a pretty obvious Bush protest-- wait, politics on a Nine Inch Nails record? Then there's "Only", with its neo-disco beat and nearly grinning (albeit through grit teeth) chorus, "There's no fucking you/ There is is only me", a song with lyrics that seem nearly stream-of-concious.

With Teeth is much more accessible than The Fragile, or hell, even more than the multi-plantinum Downward Spiral that made him into a star in the first place. And maybe that, combined with the fact that "The Hand That Feeds" is a much more obvious single than anything off his previous accomplishment (and radio has taken notice, adding "The Hand That Feeds" into heavy rotation lists all over the country) means that With Teeth will return Nine Inch Nails to the sure-thing sell they were years ago. Somehow, that seems less important to Reznor. Somehow, his most accessible record in years seems less self-concious than any of his others, which seems an interesting contradiction, considering how little self-consciousness Reznor must've had to release a double-disc art rock record at the height of Britney Spears and N Sync. But then again, discussing how successful a record from a band 10 years past their prime will be seems odder still, yet it seems to be just another aspect of Trent Reznor's complicated life, and it's because of this you shouldn't expect Reznor's self-obsession to end when the next Nine Inch Nails record comes out 5 years from now.
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with love from CRS @ 6:39 PM 

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