Nine Inch Nails

If there's one record that managed to capture with utmost sincerity the darkest, most hidden side of its era, it's surely "The Downward Spiral", perhaps the most important album of the entire Nineties, and certainly one of the highest expressions of industrial rock.

Trent Reznor, the "one man band" behind Nine Inch Nails, arrives at his masterpiece after an album ("Pretty Hate Machine") and an EP ("Broken") that were solid but far too derivative of the genre's masters, first and foremost Ministry and Skinny Puppy. But those were really just dry runs: it's with this work that Reznor reveals the true scope of his project, proving himself an artist of a far higher caliber than both his inspirations and his contemporaries.

For Reznor, the explosive, hammering sounds of industrial rock are not the end goal but the means to a fully personal style, creating a work that sums up and outclasses two decades of music of destruction while simultaneously becoming the ideal vessel for his own paranoia and frustrations: and, as is only the case with truly great artists, his personal feelings become universal. And so the monumental concept devised and realized by Reznor instantly established itself as the most credible expression of the mental confusion and uncontainable rage of a Nineties defined by rampant violence, the collapse of values and points of reference, and gratuitous sensationalism. And it's in the most fitting location imaginable, the infamous Beverly Hills house where followers of Charles Manson butchered four people, including actress Sharon Tate, that Reznor decides to give voice and freedom to the most unstable, psychotic side of his mind, giving life to his alter ego, "Mr. Self Destruct", who is also the embodiment of an entire era's "tainted" conscience, and following him down the "downward spiral" of madness, violence and, indeed, self-annihilation.

Reznor writes, arranges and performs virtually every track by himself: he's helped by two sound wizards like Flood and Alan Moulder, trusted friends like Chris Vrenna, Danny Lohner and Charlie Clouser, and exceptional guests like Stephen Perkins (Jane's Addiction) and Adrian Belew (King Crimson).

"Mr Self Destruct" lays out what will become the recurring template of many tracks: Reznor piles up hammering, exhausting, chaotic beats and layers abrasive, ultra-distorted guitars over them, with vocals alternating between a sensual, menacing register and inhuman screams: in this opening track in particular it's astonishing how so much psychic imbalance manages to find a momentary release valve in a chorus of prodigious brutality. "Piggy" is a devious pause that, behind the apparent calm of a languid dub rhythm, actually conceals violent and perverse urges: the tension built this time grows without ever quite exploding, but the ending, made of disjointed, multiplied percussion, immediately brings back the climate of instability that will be the record's guiding thread. The manic tones indeed quickly return to the fore, disfiguring the synth-pop foundation of "Heresy", a grandiose blasphemous invective ("your god is dead and no one cares / if there's a hell, i'll see you there") that perfects the already memorable "Sin" (from Pretty Hate Machine) and backs the hypocrisy of the self-righteous into a corner: the same hypocrisy exposed in the furious charge of "March Of The Pigs", whose title itself openly references the Beverly Hills massacre. "Closer" plunges into the most slimy sexual fantasies of the psychotic protagonist: the electronics pile funky, dub, industrial and Kraftwerk-esque robotic cadences one on top of the other, and once again the tension grows until it becomes suffocating, unbearable, yet never manages to break free.

"Ruiner" is another brilliant back-and-forth of completely contradictory sonorities, colliding and intertwining to portray, in the most effective way, a protagonist caught here for the first time looking inward, as if in one last residue of lucidity, a prelude to that extraordinary feat of sonic "editing" that is "The Becoming", with infernal screams serving as both backdrop and rhythm alongside dizzying industrial beats, accompanying the "transformation" of Mr. Self Destruct, now trapped in a mechanism that strips him of emotions and feelings while what remains of his humanity fights desperately to break free ("it won't give up, it wants me dead, goddamn this noise inside my head"). "I Do Not Want This" is pure schizophrenia set to music, set against a bare, squalid landscape, branded by Stephen Perkins' phenomenal drumming.

All the tension accumulated so far finally manages to explode in the stunning sadomasochistic delirium of "Big Man With A Gun", a minute and a half of pure adrenaline, proof of how Reznor is capable of turning even the vilest sound into art charged with meaning. This track's murderous fantasy unexpectedly fades into the shapeless abyss of the instrumental "A Warm Place", an undeclared cover of his idol David Bowie's "Crystal Japan" and the first true moment of reflection, or rather resignation, which evolves into the dark catharsis of the exceptional "Eraser", where the protagonist, by now reduced to a man-machine, lists his desires ("need you, dream you… fuck you, use you, break you… lose me, hate me, smash me, erase me, kill me, kill me, kill me…"): the relentless percussion, the electronics and dissonances, the devastating final blast, make this track the perfect synthesis of the entire work.

Reznor's compositional stature emerges forcefully from the solemn, symphonic score of the lengthy "Reptile"; his equally great skills in sonic manipulation and transfiguration reach their peak on the title track, a totally deconstructed piece, the ultimate sign of the madness that has by now destroyed the protagonist. And to close out such a raw, bloody journey, only a genius could have placed a track like "Hurt", a touching, subtly "disguised" acoustic ballad, laden with absolute, incurable pain.

No one before Trent Reznor had ever managed to unite anti-social violence with the deepest introspection: in him, the figures of the sociopathic destroyer and the fragile, emotional singer-songwriter meet and become one, allowing an entire confused generation to recognize itself, lose itself and find itself again in the cathartic experience of listening to this extraordinary album. It's also for this reason that "The Downward Spiral" is, to all effects, a watershed moment, a point of arrival and departure, a landmark date in the history of rock.

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03/11/2006