Nine Inch Nails
Hesitation Marks

Prophet of the chaos of flesh, the apocalypse of the senses, the dulling of reason. Reznor is a genius to many, a charlatan to a few (but convinced). Thematically, he was quite distant from the industrial artists and groups of the decade preceding him (the '80s), and notably different from the industrial clangors. Musically, however, he resorted to Electronic Body Music (EBM) and Industrial Dance Music (IDM) without much experimentation, with some sporadic metal access. It is numerically impossible to keep track of the copies sold under the NIN brand, and this only amplifies the controversy; an artist who would really have something to say about post-industrial civilization, and who decides to direct his anti-messianic message to the entire ecumene of his fans/followers - not just a few elected admirers - using the safety of the already tried and tested as a vehicle.

The IDM updated to Web 3.0 presented in the latest album in question, "Hesitation Marks," could hardly propose any more verdicts to the now decreed and proclaimed end of 20th-century industrial civilization, with its anti-values and (indirect) distortions. What would the world-popular Trent Reznor have to do with the underground English and German groups that years earlier derived a sick self-satisfaction from the aesthetic of the apocalypse, which almost always implied an Ossianic obsession with the end, often of a "voyeuristic" nature? Little or nothing, at least in terms of innovative contribution, but enough on a conceptual level. Enough to stand as an iconic figure of the "second Generation X" of the '90s.

At the time of "The Downward Spiral" [1994], the year when Oasis confessed their starlet aspirations in "Rock 'n' Roll Star," Trent and company were mired in spirals of nihilistic solipsisms ("Heresy") and murky sexual fantasies ("Closer"). A relentless nihilism that over the years would inevitably lead to "hesitation marks," the signs of attempted suicides; indelible marks of a perpetually present past made of talent, torment, and contradictions. The brief intro "The Eater of Dreams," the only experimental track on the album, is an invocation of a sort of ceremonial with synthetic echoes à la SPK. The rest follows paths trodden in the '80s and paved in the '90s, also (and especially) thanks to them. "Copy of A" and "Come Back Haunted" are valid examples of IDM with an alternative twist; "Find My Way" and "While I'm Still Here" wink at dubstep, "Satellite" and "Running" at breakbeat; the remaining tracks are simple variations on the theme. "I Would For You" and "In Two" are among the moments of the new Nine Inch Nails that best represent their new stylistic signature, already largely "calculated" in their latest albums ("Year Zero" [2007], "The Slip" [2008] and the dark ambient digressions of "Ghosts I-IV" [2008]).

A synthesis of new and old in a new form of machine dance, less "robotic" and more "human," more "commercial" - less "industrial." More "capitalist." And (much) less "suffered."