Maturity Hate Machine4 Out Of 5 Stars
Things must be going pretty swell in the Trent Reznor household. The man seems to have found some sort of domestic bliss, down to having his wife collaborate on the How To Destroy Angels project. He now has Grammy and Oscar trophies for the mantlepiece. He's so happy that, a few years after he declared Nine Inch Nails over, he's resurrected the name and put out the almost chipper "Hesitation Marks." While hardly a classic NIN album, it doesn't deserve the angry fanboy one/two star reviews. Let's address why "Hesitation Marks" is a good NIN album.
Reznor stopped using his studio time for anger management years ago, probably starting at "With Teeth." Saying that the guy's not pissed off anymore is obvious to anyone with an attention span of more than one album. He's been making music as craftsmanship as he sees fit for a long time now. Hence the politics of rocking "With Teeth," the concept album and viral campaign for "Year Zero," the ambient soundtrack precursor of "Ghosts" and his "thank you" to his fans, the so-so "The Slip," then gave it away as a download freebie. Angry young men don't sit down with movie rough cuts and devise soundtracks/scores. "Hesitation Marks" reflects all of these aspects. In fact, it's more like revisionism of his earlier work. "Hesitation Marks" sounds an awful lot like a grown man's look back at "Pretty Hate Machine."
"Copy Of A" takes this notion head on. Complete with a guest guitar run from Lindsey Buckingham (yes, the guy from 70's megastars Fleetwood Mac for you newbies), Reznor digs right in:
"I am just a copy of a copy of a copy
Everything I say has come before
Assembled into something into something into something
I am never certain anymore."
He's in on the whole idea. That's why when the haunting "All Time Low" brings to mind images from "The Downward Spiral," Reznor is looking at the paranoia from a man who's already been to the bottom and can now see what abyss looks like from a safe distance. The atmospheric guitar from one time King Crimson/Bears/Bowie guitarist Adrian Belew makes me wish Belew could have found his place comfortably in the NIN framework, as he's always been an asset to any band who needs their guitars coming in from left field. Belew's appearance here, along with Buckingham's (or for that matter, super-bassist Pino Palladino) is clear evidence that Reznor is looking after the perfection he desires in these songs.
I can't say that "Hesitation Marks" is all peaches and debris, as the song's tendency to be reminiscent of earlier, classic work can be distracting. That doesn't mean the album is bad, nor does it qualify the album as not enjoyable. Trent Reznor has every right to be happy. It also gives him the leeway to say (as he does in "Everything"), "I have tried everything, and I've survived everything." Good on him, and lucky for us. "Hesitation Marks" quietly rages on, doing so in a manner befitting a man pushing 50.
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