Nine Inch Nails

With Teeth (Nothing)

Phases & Stages

Nine Inch Nails

With Teeth (Nothing)

Poster boy for the industrial Nineties, Trent Reznor returns clean and sober and packing a ferocious chomp on With Teeth. When last the dark lord checked in, on 1999's sonically numbing The Fragile, it was a weak coda to the powerful NIN machine that turned out genre-defining discs Broken, The Downward Spiral, and Pretty Hate Machine. Consider With Teeth a return to form that substitutes the depthless noir of Reznor's past material with thunder gray, a night shade that allows for more texture and atmosphere. The result is that Teeth is a seamless effort, tracks numbering an auspicious 13 and a single – appropriately titled "The Hand That Feeds." Reznor bolsters his trademark whisper-to-a-biblical-roar by adding Dave Grohl on drums, which solders tracks like "All the Love in the World," "Sunspots," and "Love Is Not Enough" into a percussive cocoon. That's Reznor's devilish secret here, along with his brushed chromium vocals, and it works because he's moved beyond the angst. It also makes Bowie-esque "Only" and funky "The Collector" notable deviations from form. Sometimes it's difficult to look in the mirror the morning after, but Reznor's steely reflection is stark, commanding as ever. Doesn't that make you feel better? (NIN at Stubb's, Wednesday, May 25, is so sold out.)

***.5

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