Nine Inch Nails - and all that
could have been
Live concert document
reflects Trent Reznor‘s ambition, but not at the expense of audience
satisfaction.
While Nine Inch Nails recordings have always offered
sonic discovery and lyrical invective, the band‘s live shows have always been
unhinged displays of mania. All of that impenetrable fog, strobe lighting,
equipment destruction and grievous bodily harm consistently raised the dynamic
stakes of their music. There‘s a big difference playing, oh, NIN‘s Broken EP on
your home stereo, and then hearing Trent Reznor bark through a 120-decibel
sound System while you are surrounded by a bunch ot people you‘d like to see on
the business end of a sawed-off shotgun - especially if they‘re feeling the
same way about you.
Fortunately, and all that could have been isn‘t
just a barrage of 199-bpm sucker-punches. Sure, the Pretty Hate Machine anthems
are here (save for “Down In It“; thanks, Trent!) and so are the fuel-injected
displays of misanthropic nihilism that make The Downward Spiral and Broken so
alluring (“Gave Up?“). But while many NIN fans couldn‘t get their head around
the subtlety of 1999‘s The Fragile, the tracks representing that album here
offer a well-balanced respite from this disc‘s fist-flying madness. Sure,
“Starfuckers Inc.“ is a given meth-soaked ‘banger, but the delicate “Frail,“
the noirish “The Day The World Went Away“ and “The Great Below“ prove that a
whisper can be just as intense as a throat-shearing yell (a concept lost in nü-metal
America). This time, though, NIN‘s subtlety doesn‘t detract from the listening
experience the way the ambient portions of the Fragility shows puzzled
concertgoers.
With this live disc (and corresponding DVD),
Nine Inch Nails have arrived at that elusive point where artistic fulfillment
and audience expectation coalesce. The album works as the best NIN mix tape you
never got around to making, as well as an aural resume of Reznor‘s capabilities
and his potential future aesthetic options. The days of him stomping an
assembly line of DX-7 synths to rubble onstage may be over, but that only means
something else - man, machine or perhaps Reznor himself—is gonna pay later.
Even after 11 years, NIN‘s ride remains as exhilarating as ever.
(nothing)
Jason Pettigrew
and all that could have been
Personnel: Trent Reznor (vocals, guitars,
synthesizers), Charlie Clouser (synthesizer, samplers, vocals), Robin Finck
(guitars, vocals), Danny Lohner (bass, synthesizer, vocals), Jerome Dillon
(drums)
Producer: Trent Reznor
Engineers: Dave “Rave“ Ogilvie, Jan Lemon,
Leo Herrera, Paul Forgues
Recorded live during the 2000 Fragility 2.0
tour in various American cities
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