Olga Bas Photography + Music Reviews » nine inch nails

Update: NIN/JA 2009

Galatea — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:15:02 +0000

Sunday night, I got to finally experience my first good arena shoot. Nine Inch Nails, the reunited Jane’s Addiction and Street Sweeper Social Club (featuring Boots Riley and Tom Morello)put on a great and lively show.

NIN at Jones Beach; June 7th 2009

Jane's Addiction at Jones Beach; June 7th 2009

Street Sweeper Social Club at Jones Beach; June 7th 2009

Full photo set featuring all three bands can be seen on Prefix Mag and a much more comprehensive review can be read on Out’s Popnography blog.

Extra thanks got to Renee for a painless press experience!

Nine Inch Nails, Madison Square Garden, New York

Galatea — Fri, 11 Nov 2005 18:46:39 +0000

Date: November 3rd 2005

This is the first big arena tour for Nine Inch Nails in five years and it’s easy to tell: the Garden is filling up with people from all age groups, the colour black is favoured by most, and it’s not even time for the first band.

Death From Above 1979, the openers, are lukewarmly received. The crowd is mostly just curious to see how the duo will fare, what with being a duo and having a drummer as the lead singer. ‘Romantic Rights’ sets heads nodding, but they just can’t seem to fill the large stage even with the clutter of equipment taking up most of the space. There are some distinctive riffs, but mostly it seems like noise if you are unacquainted with the songs as most of this crowd is.

Main support, Queens of the Stone Age, go down much better. There are a few rabid fans in the pit to stir things up early; an excitable girl tries to scramble up on stage, flailing frantically as the security tries to gently get her out of there. The first few songs are well-delivered but when ‘Burn the Witch’ is played, things heat up. The song has got an irresistible rhythm and is the set highlight. ‘No One Knows’ gets a thorough reworking and it serves to freshen up a good, if overplayed, single. Apparently the band has not been so well-received elsewhere and, in response to the cheers and whistles, Josh Homme says that he likes us. He really likes us.

Nine Inch Nails appear behind a gauzy curtain and the pit becomes a dangerous place where you can lose your shoes, not to mention some blood. This is the first time Trent Reznor has played a big arena while sober and he attacks each song with that sharp clear-headedness. ‘March of the Pigs’ is wielded like a weapon while ‘Beside You In Time’ sets off those lit up mobiles and ‘Hurt’ sees the most crowd-surfers despite being one of the most tender songs (it results in a few bruises and a split chin). All the while Aaron North acts like a one-man show, stalking ’round and ’round, guitar bucking in his hands as if trying to escape. Once they play ‘Head Like A Hole’, the set closer, the bar for mayhem is raised as the keyboard is smashed and the amps and drum kit overturned, guitars flying through the air, broken pieces flung into the seething crowd.

A mess of debris litters the floor and everybody slowly stumbles out, some shell shocked, some bleeding and bruised, some cradling broken limbs, but all look pleased, war wounds notwithstanding.

Previously published on This Is Fake DIY.

Nine Inch Nails – With Teeth

Galatea — Sun, 01 May 2005 21:41:11 +0000

Released: May 2nd 2005

There is so much expectation riding on this album, that it seems it is impossible to reach them all. After all, five years give a lot of time for writing and rewriting and then yet more fiddling to get it to sound just right. There are no purely instrumental-incomprehensible-ten-minute dirges and nothing that reinvents the established sound, but it’s not a regurgitation of the past either. The music is mostly mournful and sometimes lashes out in anger, in fits and spasms, like a dying animal, in true Nine Inch Nails style.

The tracks that follow take their cue from the two musical spectrums that fill Reznor‘s book – hopelessly depressing and horribly angry. ‘All The Love In The World’ kicks things off in a low key. Instrumentally saturated and minimalist in every other aspect, it does not truly unfold until the last minute. ‘The Hand That Feeds’ is the heaviest track (if you define heaviness as a relentless beat) and is somewhat deceiving as it’s the most straightforwardly structured of the bunch. ‘Every Day Is Exactly The Same’ is quite melodic and therefore memorable; unlike the other selections, it can even be called beautiful.

The title track is a shock to the system; just when you think it’s over, it grinds to a start again and it is not a pretty sound. ‘Only’ and ‘Sunspots’ have a great staying power and almost beg repeat listens in order to show off all their little nuances. Half of the tracks benefit from the special guest drumming of Dave Grohl, giving them focus, a grounding element, if you will, among the chaos. ‘The Line Begins To Blur’ is a good example. And after all the ups and the downs, it ends as quietly as it began, a few piano notes resonating in the silence.

It’s almost possible to forget the five years of absence because it’s now no more than a distant dream.

Previously published on This Is Fake DIY.

Nine Inch Nails – The Hand That Feeds

Galatea — Mon, 04 Apr 2005 21:53:54 +0000

Released: April 18th 2005

The near perfection that Trent Reznor longs for so much may just have been reached. The parched masses have finally been imparted with a drop from the album that has been so long in the making; over five years to be exact.

‘The Hand That Feeds’ is not as heavy on special effects as some of the tracks taken from the massive endeavour that is ‘The Fragile’, but undercurrents of that gritty industrial feel running beneath the pounding of real drums do just as nicely. The five year hiatus did nothing to soften the sound; if anything it’s more concrete – like a slab of brick. It saws and howls, Reznor is still angry, gnashing his teeth with relish. ‘Will you bite the hand that feeds?/Will you chew until it bleeds’ Anyone?

Fans can breathe a collective sigh of relief. This is undeniably up par with the rest of Nine Inch Nails‘ extensive Halo collection.

Previously published on This Is Fake DIY.