If you're a fan of gothic and industrial rock, the past few years have not been very kind to you. With Marilyn Manson's recording career apparently over, Orgy being dropped from Reprise and Stabbing Westward breaking up in 2002, black eyeliner-tinged tears are probably streaming down your face nowadays.
However, Nine Inch Nails-headed by the godfather of industrial rock himself, Trent Reznor-have returned to give us With Teeth. NIN's first album since 1999 is an attempt to resuscitate this dying genre (pun intended). On the whole, NIN fans will be unmoved by this mostly familiar-sounding offering, but in a new world of emo, alt-folk and other sensitive things, With Teeth is different enough today to warrant some positive recognition.
Reznor, the one-man wrecking crew behind the music and lyrics of NIN, assembled a new band for the With Teeth album and tour as per his usual revolving door system of backing musicians. The new lineup includes bassist Jeordie White ne?? Twiggy Ramirez, who, after being in Marilyn Manson and A Perfect Circle, seems to be going for the title of best heavy rock six degrees of Kevin Bacon answer of all time. Evidently, keeping everyone who isn't Trent from getting too comfortable in their role in the band keeps Reznor's one-man show method intact-apparent as ever on the new album.
Following 1999's deeply introspective The Fragile (which was reportedly written while Reznor was deep in the throes of alcoholism), the assertively-titled With Teeth might have been expected to take a more outward approach-but titles can be deceiving. With Teeth is respectable musically and lyrically, but it isn't anything that NIN fans haven't heard before.
Reznor has produced some quiet, reflective piano-driven songs on With Teeth, in particular the album's first track, the minimalist, brooding \All the Love in the World."" It's a bold, interesting choice to open the album with something so subdued, making almost no effort to ""grab"" the listener.
It feels more like a prologue to With Teeth's second and strongest song, the high-octane ""You Know What You Are."" This is all that was good about industrial rock; a frenetic, angst-ridden symphony of segmented musical elements, devolving out of bass-saturated mayhem into a sadly beautiful piano solo while making perfect rhythmic sense. It's good to see Reznor still has a little of this left in him, even if the album isn't as powerful or original as his previous work.
The second half of With Teeth is solid, yet repetitive exercise of Reznor's trademark style. The depressing ""Every Day is Exactly the Same,"" the hard-driving, frantic ""Getting Smaller"" and the calmer pseudo-love ballad ""Sunspots"" contribute to produce the intensely emotional feel that has marked virtually all of NIN's work.
Concluding the album are two contemplative songs in a row, the electronically meditative ""Beside You in Time"" and ""Right Where it Belongs,"" another piano epic. While no one could call it happy, ""Right Where it Belongs"" is With Teeth's most hopeful, forward-looking track, a very smart choice to end the album with. Hopefully, Reznor is looking at things more optimistically now, and perhaps that will come through more on his next album.
