 "Maybe it was only by embracing total creative freedom and risking those lows was he able to shape an album of such resonant, consistent highs." It’s hard to objectively review an album that, when I first heard it two decades ago, had such a mighty influence on how I came to listen to music. It gave me my first experience of feeling that I had to persevere to understand an album because, despite my frustration, I just knew that it would reward me in the end. As with all of my Ginger Nuts of Horror pieces, this is mainly a personal account rather than a description of the album’s further-reaching impact. The Fragile is in many ways a follow-up to The Downward Spiral, but its structure is longer and far more sprawling than the comparative meticulousness of its predecessor. Rather than telling the tale of a man who grows so self-obsessed and miserable that he eventually takes his own life as in The Downward Spiral, The Fragile deals with similar themes but never reaches a firm conclusion. It takes the listener on a long, winding journey that ends on as uncertain and uncomfortable a note as it begins. It’s not as widely-loved as The Downward Spiral, and it’s far from flawless, but this double album with its Left Disc and Right Disc is my favourite NIN release. Opener to Left Disc Somewhat Damaged starts with a fittingly gradual build-up, managing to create a hypnotic hook from a tune with an odd 9 beats to a bar. It swells and rises, adding more mechanical blasts of guitar and thudding percussion before halfway through slipping into a more regular 8-beat pattern. The song’s glib yet angst-ridden repeated line, “…too fucked up to care anymore” may as well be the album’s motto. 2nd track The Day the World Went Away is apparently a song about Trent Reznor’s late grandmother, but when I first listened to it, it seemed to capture so much about the agony of encroaching adulthood. Loss and regret, ennui and terror, all packaged together in a percussion-free song that pendulum-swings between near-silence and a wall-of-noise barrage. It’s on tracks like this that Trent’s attention to detail is on full show: during a quiet section of slowing guitars that seem to shrink quieter with each repetition, the final guitar stroke begins a quarter-moment before the distorted climax bears down like a life-affirming yet life-draining tidal wave. That microscopic delay means that even now, after 20 years of listening, the climax to the song hits me every time. The Wretched is one of my favourite tracks. It’s just so scuzzy and murky, oozing self-loathing and an almost sadistic relishing of the awfulness of the world, all topped-off with a scum-soaked guitar solo played from the bottom of a swamp. I could wax lyrical about almost every song on Left Disc – the weirdly uplifting grime of We’re In This Together Now, the tragic sorrow of the title track, the tribal drums and rising intensity of Just Like You Imagined, the Dr Dre-assisted beats of Even Deeper, the unsettling industrial churn of Pilgrimage, the apocalyptic final riffs of No, You Don’t, the tranquil melancholy of La Mer – but I’m going to move straight to the final track before turning to Right Disc. The Great Below is one of my favourite songs of all time. Here’s a quick anecdote. When I was 20, my friend and I ate some magic cookies. After lolling about in my room for an hour or two, admiring the swirl of each other’s faces and convincing ourselves that the music we were playing was alive somehow, I decided that the best thing we could possibly do would be to take a trip to the beach and watch the sea. As a side note, I was having a fantastic time, but my poor pal was teetering on the edge of sanity, so perhaps forcing him to depart the safety of my bedroom was a little cruel, but hey, NO RAGRETS, as the famous tattoo exclaims. It was a glorious sunny day, and while I relished the warm kiss of the sun and a psychedelic sense of surreal bliss, my poor mate kept mumbling behind me, “If anyone looks at me I’m going to lose it…” We reached the beach, which for some reason was empty. The sea was liquid gold as I put my headphones in and started The Great Below. Now, for me, it is a perfect piece of music. Drenched in sorrow yet peppered with tragic granules of hope, it’s an exercise in atmosphere and ambience and as close to a Jean Michel Jarre soundscape as NIN gets. As it played, I watched the Midas-touched ocean and felt those magical cookies combine with the music to give me an experience I’ve never forgotten. I felt like I could trace every glistening motion of the waters. My dilated eyes swallowed the sea’s vastness and my mind filled with Reznor’s simple but deeply poetic words. By the drifting finale of The Great Below I had tears running down my cheeks. Everything was beautiful; tragically so. The world had become somehow simultaneously vast and miniscule in the space of a 5-minute song, and I felt anew. I turned to my mate, who had opted to listen to Rammstein. He looked like he’d just survived a near-death experience, but it didn’t stop us having another nibble of those magic cookies later that evening. Anyway, back to the album. I’ve never enjoyed Right Disc as much as Left Disc. There just doesn’t feel like there are quite as many, um, “bangers” on it, and it places a greater emphasis on soundscapes than structured songs. Don’t get me wrong: the atmosphere is still haunting and often engaging, and there are certainly a handful of unforgettable moments. Into the Void is a great tune with a heavy 80s influence; Please is a satisfyingly noisy blast of industrial rock; Complication has a wonderfully breezy sense of fine-tuned malice. But then I start to struggle, and in honesty some of Trent’s lyrics here make me cringe. Where is Everybody? is like a bizarre attempt at an industrial hip-hop song, but with piss-weak lyrics. Then we have the dull-as-paint I’m Looking Forward to Joining You, which follows two of Right Disc’s best songs with a minimalist barely-there beat and yet more dreary lyrics. If only there could have been more tracks like Starfuckers, Inc on Right Disc, which is a blistering shock of drum ‘n’ bass-infused energy that once again showcases Trent Reznor’s scrupulous song-writing and production flair. It’s an obvious single with a catchy verse and an even catchier chorus, and I find it impossible not to nod my head and sing along each time I hear it. The final track Ripe (With Decay) is barely a conclusion at all, and feels almost like a musical phrase which ends on an unresolved note. It’s repetitive and haunting, and serves as an introspective comedown rather than a crescendo. The problem for me lies in the epic length of The Fragile, which I don’t feel is complemented by the meandering pace of Right Disc. When I spend two full hours on a single album, I need a strong reason to keep listening, and while the bewitching Left Disc is knitted together by effective song structures and the occasional instrumental, I can’t say the same of Right Disc. Perhaps that was Reznor’s intention – or perhaps the scope of the album was difficult to keep in check and remain focused. Overall, though, it’s a magnificent achievement. I find it hard to think of another album I have enjoyed so consistently for over 2 decades as The Fragile, and returning to it to write this review has been a pleasure. Perhaps without the freedom to explore all the sonic textures and styles as Trent did, which resulted in those weaker tracks and sections, it would have emerged a far less significant album. Maybe it was only by embracing total creative freedom and risking those lows was he able to shape an album of such resonant, consistent highs. THE CHILDREN AT THE BOTTOM OF THE GARDDEN BY JONATHAN BUTCHER At the edge of the coastal city of Seadon, behind a dilapidated farmhouse surrounded by rotten trees, something titters and calls. The Gardden. Its playful voice promises games, magic, wonders, lies - and roaring torrents of blood. The Gardden speaks not just to its eccentric keeper, but also to the deviants of Seadon's criminal underworld: a restless goth, a cheating waster, a sullen concubine, a perverted drug baron, and a murderous sociopath. Haunted by shadowed things with coal-black eyes, they'll soon be lured to a place where nightmares become flesh, secrets rise from the dark, and a voice coaxes them to play and stay, yes yes yes, forever.   |
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