Nine Inch Nails - With Teeth album review
Written May 20, 2005

I saw an interview with Trent Reznor the other day where he talked about how he’s been healing his soul. He’s not quite as hopeless now, apparently. “I’m here to make music good again,” he quietly claimed in his disheveled way. Hrrmm. I see.

Bold claims, Mr. Reznor. Bold claims indeed, although the current state of popular music reminds me of a big, fat, impotent whale and an infusion of any kind couldn’t hurt at this point. Nevertheless, I fervently hoped that Nine Inch Nails’ With Teeth would not be a sunshiny gospel album. A six-year hiatus can do crazy things to a band.

Thankfully, it turns out that Trent Reznor with a placid spirit sounds and writes very much like the broken and angsty Trent Reznor of yore. He whispers about loss and screams confusion as the album seesaws back and forth between understated ballads and sheer walls of electronic noise. With Teeth is unmistakably vintage NIN, but… what’s this? From amongst the discordance emerges a CATCHY POP-RIFF. Then another, several minutes later. This is some hooky shit! And Trent Reznor has started to sing about flowers and butterflies.

Okay, maybe not – Reznor’s lyrics are still standard depressive fare – but dare I say that With Teeth comes off as playful at times? The album is full of privately hilarious moments: Me and roommate Chad love singing the electro-solo from “The Hand That Feeds”, and Popular Jackie from Sunrise Records gets hysterical when she hears the chorus from “With Teeth” (a-with-a-teeth-a!). You’ll probably find your own favorites.

With Teeth has already been hyper-textualized by reviewers with hard-ons for fancy, meaningless phrases like “PoMo acoustical resonance” and “mega-blazed synthesized sonicscapes.” But none of that tells you what you need to know: that the album is simultaneously fun and dark, a tribute to the past and a playful slap at the future.

It’s reminiscence for old-school NIN fans and an alternative taste for nu-metal aficionados who don’t remember what came before Linkin Park’s opus: “Shut up when I’m talking to YOU!” With Teeth walks the oh-so-narrow tightrope between creative stagnation and insane reformation, and its passage leaves the hallowed NIN name relatively unscathed. The singles are all lined up, profanity-free and ready to go, and Mr. Reznor is feeling better than ever.

I realize now that I swung too far away from the important task of actually describing the album in my attempt to write a review that didn't sound like the pretentious bullshit spewed by most other reviewers. Personal anecdotes are great and all, but there's a balance that needs to be struck between techno-synopsis and subjective experience. Aaah well. At least my review is 'different'. Perhaps even 'special', in the most politically correct sense of the word. Let's categorize!