Nine Inch Nails

Industrial superstar Trent Reznor is back with an album that's as dark as his best stuff but tempered a bit in the sexy torture department. In addition to taking on more substantial subject matter than in the past, Reznor applies stronger elements of heavy guitar rock to several songs.

Trent Reznor was ahead of his time. Like nobody else in the 1980s, he heard the smoldering
teen rage inside the blip and bleep of early synth-pop: Under all the Atari beats and
shiny-shiny haircuts, there was an ordinary loser kid's heart burning for vengeance against
the world, and Reznor amped that sound into the full-blown sociopath New Wave splendor
of Pretty Hate Machine, Broken and The Downward Spiral. No rock star had ever... More >

All pretense of deeper meaning worn into shtick, he's left with the aggro mood music that was always his calling ("Getting Smaller," "With Teeth"). (Grade - *)