CD reviews
NINE INCH NAILS Add Violence
ABOUT Christmas time last year, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross released the first in a trilogy of Nine Inch Nails EPs. Here comes the follow-up. Anyone who has enjoyed this industrial rock band since they formed in the late 1980s already knows what they are getting into here. There will be synths, distorted guitars, thunderous drums and screaming angst. Somehow, Reznor remains engaging. He has rock star X-factor in his bone marrow. These five songs have plenty of anguish and aggression. They are harsh and full of loathing. It starts with Less Than and a spirited retro riff coupled with aching loneliness and a fleeting female touch in the backing vocals. There is pop appeal in the chorus, the only song here that can claim that. Closing song The Background World is absurdly wild with its glooming, simmering intro and eight-minute-long devolution into looped madness. NIN get surprising soppy on The Lovers. “I am free, finally,” Reznor whispers. Um, OK, thanks for sharing.
Not Anymore is the high point for fans of the band’s rock sound. It is an intense and hostile three minutes.
This Isn’t the Place is a throwaway song, more akin to Ross and Reznor’s film soundtrack work. It’s hard to forget that Nine Inch Nails already delivered the perfect album for America in 2017, but it came out in 2007.
Year Zero, go look it up.
BIG BOI Boomiverse
IT’S funny how a few things can derail an otherwise enjoyable album. From the first second of opening tune Da
Next Day — the strings, the booming bass — I was convinced that this new record from one half of OutKast was going to be awesome. Next stop is Kill Jill, another cracking tune with a haunting, weird vocal sample teamed with hard lines from Killer Mike and Jeezy. Whoa! It’s a beauty. It’s an album highlight. Until … Hang on, was that Big Boi? Did he just out of the blue cast some opinions about Bill Cosby? Blegh. Ruined. Here comes another tune that sounds like a hit,
All Night, with its old-timey piano hook that burrows deep into your brain. Seems like the kind of song that’ll climb into the top 10. Oh, is that Dr Luke with writing and production credits? Oh. Oh … Nothing more to say here.
Mic Jack? Could be OK. Big Boi comes out spitting about as dexterously as he is able. And then the song is ruined with a cheese chorus and an Adam Levine vocal. Is there ever a good time for a Maroon 5 cameo? Probably not. For all my moaning, you wouldn’t guess that there is some cool music on Boomiverse. The old guys all deliver the goods, from Snoop to Gucci Mane to Kurupt. Big Boi could have tried to connect more to what the kids like, he could have got young rappers in the studio like 21 Savage or Lil Uzi Vert. He didn’t and that’s good, but it’s hard to overlook where he went wrong.