steve kwan user experience designer

Without Teeth

(April 24th, 2005 - 2:08PM)

Seeing as how I've been slacking in my updates, I'll try to add a bit of bulk to this one to make up for those of you suffering withdrawl.

Ryan sent me the new Nine Inch Nails album, With Teeth. I've been a NIN fan since I picked up their last "new" album, The Fragile, several years ago. Those of you familiar with NIN are probably aware that the band only releases new albums every five years or so; in between, a few remix albums might be released, but these mostly contain new versions of already existing songs. With Teeth is the first entirely new full-length album that Nine Inch Nails has released (even though it hasn't officially been released yet) since 1999's The Fragile. With that much time to write new material, and given how much I liked The Fragile, obviously my expectations were high.

Unfortunately, I'm pretty disappointed with the new album. It's very different from NIN's previous work. Not that different is necessarily a bad thing - The Fragile was very different from prior NIN albums - but in this case, I don't think that With Teeth's changes are for the better.

Below are my criticisms of With Teeth:

• The album is more or less absent of the unique sounds that make Nine Inch Nails' work so original. NIN is known for recording oddball sounds (such as car doors slamming) and working them into their songs. Most of the songs on With Teeth are composed of nothing more than guitar/bass/drums/vocals combinations, with some keyboard buzzing (more on this later). This selection of instruments just seems too "typical" for NIN, and the lack of unique noise makes the songs sound bland.
  
  
• There is an irritating keyboard buzzing noise present in almost all of the songs on With Teeth. Nine Inch Nails music is generally heavily synthesized, so a bit of static or buzzing in their songs is nothing new; however, in the absence of richer instrumentals and sound that was present on previous albums, you really realize how annoying the keyboard buzzing is.
  
  
• With Teeth makes it very obvious what a lousy vocalist Trent Reznor really is. I don't know why I never noticed it before. Probably because in prior albums, the songs were more diverse and featured a richer range of sounds. Or perhaps because in prior albums, Trent was so busy screaming that he didn't have much of a chance to sing. In any case, Trent sounds really off-key in most of the songs on With Teeth.
  
  
• Most of the songs are lyrically stupid. Some of Trent's earlier work was almost poetic in nature; most of the stuff on With Teeth sounds like rehashed, senseless "I hate myself" rambling. There are a few songs on the album with flashes of brilliance, but for the most part, them words don't make sense.
  
  
• The whole anger thing seems really forced on With Teeth. It may have worked on prior albums, but Trent is a lot older now. He tries to put on his angry face, but it just isn't believable.
  

The above comments probably won't deter NIN fans from purchasing With Teeth, and they really aren't intended to. Overall, the album is okay. It's not NIN's finest work, and there are certainly no memorable songs like Hurt on this album, but there are still some good tracks on there that NIN fans will enjoy.

That being said, I don't think I'll buy it. I've got a digital version I obtained from Ryan; I think that's good enough for me.