Nine Inch Nails
The Downward Spiral

THE REVIEW

The downward spiral.

‘'The Downward Spiral'' is the third studio work by Nine Inch Nails, released in 1994. In my opinion, it is one of the crowning achievements of the '90s.

This is an album where context is very important, but it also concerns man as such. Trent Reznor's mind has been infected by a particular disease called nihilism. He lives in an ‘'industrial'' society: dirty with coal and oil, pale and weak due to the unlivability of the industrial city; he is now a prisoner of his own invention, the machine. He is a prisoner as he is dependent: the system would collapse without it.
He no longer lives according to his natural life cycles, but his life is dictated by the rhythms of the machine's work.
Perhaps this form of perverse dependence is not only changing his habits, but also his mind, his body (as in:''Tetsuo: the iron man''), and his voice, which in ‘'The Downward Spiral'' is constantly transforming and distorted. Only in some brief intervals does Reznor remember to be human and thus possess a human voice, which, however, is always used in a sarcastic way.

He is a man without any hope, aware that his life will be a long agony. He accumulates anger incessantly from birth. He is disillusioned with everything: disillusioned with God (‘'Heresy''), with society (‘'March of the pigs''), with interpersonal relationships (‘'Piggy'', ‘'Reptile'').
He screams his anger not as a complaint but as an outlet, aware that things will never change, at least not before his death.
He is reduced to a primitive state: sex as violence (‘'Closer''), drugs, violence, filth, madness, pain, death.
Society has stopped evolving, the devolution begins, and man is nothing more than the victim/creator of this system. The only way to end the endless pain he feels but hides is suicide, caused by the most self-disparaging method: a shotgun blast to the face (‘'The Downward Spiral song''). Society is descending into a Downward Spiral, destined for self-destruction, which will conclude with the extinction of man.

Frightening album, dirty, sick, which certainly won't be liked by everyone and which, especially in the second part, projects the mind into a parallel world.