Inch Worm

Nine Inch Nails' How to Destroy Angels

by M.J. Fine

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Since playing the final Nine Inch Nails show last September, Trent Reznor's followed the traditional love-marriage-baby-carriage trajectory, marrying former West Indian Girl frontwoman Mariqueen Maandig and getting her in the family way. In the meantime, they've expanded the business, recording an EP as

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The six-song How to Destroy Angels isn't so much a departure for Reznor as a quickie nihilist getaway for two. Maandig handles the vocals and plays some fuzzy, skuzzy synths, but NIN's dynamics are in full effect, with buzz-saw melodies and hammering percussion giving way to sudden, uneasy silence. There's nothing shocking to the lyrics, either, whether Maandig's whispering about parasites and drowning or chanting, as she does on "BBB": "Listen to the sound of my big black boots."

To an outsider, Reznor's new band sounds like the next logical step, true to the path he blazed in the '90s, but without the petulance that might look ridiculous on a 45-year-old millionaire dad. But fan reaction seems split: Some see Maandig as a gold digger who made Reznor boring, while others think she's way fucking hot, dude. That says exactly as much about NIN's minions as it does about their dark lord.

Whatever else Reznor does, it'll be judged by 1994's The Downward Spiral, an hour-plus compendium of disgust, loathing and nihilism. What does a young white guy from the sticks of Pennsylvania have to be so angry about? Religion, sex, drugs, the world — you name it, he hates it. "Mr. Self Destruct" opens the album with a declaration of intent; at the other end, "The Downward Spiral" bottoms out with suicide before rising up and out with "Hurt," a vow of broken vows to follow. Reznor's gift, on display in "Hurt," as well as "March of the Pigs" and "Closer," is crafting sonic earworms that burrow into your skull and lodge there. He can make seemingly well-adjusted people rot from the melodic poison he's planted in them. That's what ultimately damns The Downward Spiral, and also what redeems it.

(m_fine@citypaper.net)