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Kerrang
24.02.2007
March of the Pigs The Briefest Of Stopgaps For Trent An Co.
Autor: Catherine Yates
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Nine Inch Nails Beside You In Time (Interscope, DVD)
KKK (=good) AFTER 2005‘s ‘With Teeth‘ saw the end of a six-year wait for new Nine Inch Nails material it seems that Trent Reznor hat finally discovered the joys of productivity. Certainly by NIN standards, 2007 is already a hurricane of unprecedented activity; there’s a major tour due to hit the UK in March and a brand new album scheduled for April, so it‘s disappointing that this DVD — which kicks off the hat-trick in what must be the most brutal interpretation of ‘stop gap release’ ever— falls short a of prior achievements. Taken from two shows on the North American leg of last year’s tour, ‘Beside You In Time’ is a live souvenir much in the same vein as 2002’s ‘All That Could Have Been’. With a stage packed with a miniature Tokyo of futuristic lighting, projections und special effects, the concert footage looks like it might have been incredible to be there at the time (at one point Reznor hurls a mic-stand at a gigantic screen covering the stage, causing it to ‘shatter‘ spectacularly), but any sense tat the heat, sweat und sheer adrenaline of a NIN gig is lost with a neutered sound und the kind of unimaginative camerawork that sees fit to fill the bottom half of the screen with the backs-of-head view usually reserved for cinema bootlegs. Occasionally the strength of the material and performance break through for some genuinely exciting moments — a strobe-heavy ‘Gave Up’, beautifully powerful ‘Something I Can Never Have‘, a brutally corrosive ‘March Of The Pigs’ (complete with daring crowd-surf from guitarist Aaron North) — but after 19 songs it’s ironic that a stills gallery and claustrophobic rehearsal footage are the more engaging options here. But if this isn’t the most essential purchase in an otherwise stellar catalogue of achievement, at least fans won’t be left waiting another half-decade to see things set to rights. EXTRAS: North American summer tour footage, ‘The Hand That Feeds’ and ‘Only‘ music videos, rehearsal footage, discography, stills gallery.
Catherine Yates
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