 Review by Alex Davis Yes, I know the series is called Nine Inch Nails at 30, but as Trent Reznor's career has developed and grown we've seen numerous new directions for him as a musician. Back in 1989, who would have thought the mastermind behind Pretty Hate Machine or the furious stylings of Broken could have in time become an Oscar-winning soundtrack artist? While so many people hark back to those first four or five NIN albums, the Reznor we know today may well be a far more complete musician, with significantly more range than those earlier works. I suppose you could argue that point, but there have been numerous different sounds incorporated along the course of three decades. Which brings us to Welcome Oblivion, which is not some sort of secret Nine Inch Nails album but the first – and to date only – full album from side project How To Destroy Angels. The project itself features Reznor alongside frequent collaborator Atticus Ross, as well as his wife Mariqueen as a lead singer – and before anyone starts throwing around claims of nepotism, her voice is actually really good, capturing just the sort of ethereal quality needed for this sort of album. I've listened to this album through a number of times, and have honestly been chewing over what to say about if for some time. I think it's genuinely a good album, although is certainly far more ambient that anything under the NIN moniker – even Still or Ghosts I-IV feel more energetic and in your face by comparison. In some regards that's what makes it so ideal for a side project – it is different, and noticeably so. It's a record I can certainly put on, and perfectly happily have on, but it has significantly more the feeling of background music than I've encountered in anything else with the Reznor name on it. It's an album that doesn't quite fully hold my attention, but despite myself I will find I'm accidentally humming or singing along to bits I barely realise I'm hearing. Maybe that makes it a great ambient album after all, but in reviewing it's hard to really pull apart track by track. I find that numerous songs sound similar, and sort of run together. While there's a lot here I like, there are only a few songs that jump out as a standout – Keep it Together is a solid track to lead with towards the front of the album, and Strings and Attractors is a deeply catchy number that almost veers into being poppy. And the song that first brought the band to my attention, A Drowning, is a stunningly good closer – in fact it's worth this album existing for that track alone. While the first half is generally strong, I do also feel as though the second half lags quite badly, and there's a run of four or five tracks that don't feel at all special or memorable – I wouldn't go so far as to call them filler, but maybe a slightly different running order could have alleviated that. You could also argue that maybe it's just a little too long, and a few tracks less would maybe have worked better. So yeah, it's a side project, and it's nothing like NIN ultimately. There are no doubt tracks of value here, but I don't find it as compelling as the main band. And that's not for want of trying – I've never been one to write anything off from these musical quarters, and a number of Reznor pieces have taken time to grow on me before entering firm favourite status. But no matter how much I listen to Welcome Oblivion it just doesn't seem to reach those heights. If you've always enjoyed the lighter and more ambient touches of NIN, then you might well get something out of this, but it's not industrial, it's not metal and it's not rock – it's an album that truly has its own identity. It would have been interesting to see what How To Destroy Angels might have served up next, but the members of the group have obviously been taken down other avenues since...   Comments are closed.
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