nine inch nails / albums

Nine Inch Nails' 1994 masterwork The Downward Spiral makes a good choice for an early issue in the "dual-disc" format that puts CD material on one side of a disc and DVD content on the other. Here, the CD side contains a digitally remastered version of the album, while the DVD side has a 5.1 mix for both surround-sound players and DVD audio. Given that this is a relatively recent work, the sound improvement is not as drastic as it has been for older albums, but the effect of the remix is, as usual, to open up the sound, providing greater clarity and separation. This might not necessarily be a good thing in the industrial metal style, which depends for its effect on a dense, sometimes distorted sound, but it works well for The Downward Spiral because of all those sudden edits that take the music from a loud, noisy sound picture down to a solo vocal or acoustic guitar; those juxtapositions are emphasized even more here and are, if possible, even more startling than they were originally. The DVD side also includes three videos, for "Closer," "March of the Pigs," and "Hurt." "Closer" is a disturbing concept video that finds Nine Inch Nails' leader Trent Reznor singing and hanging in the air in a combination freak museum and slaughterhouse along with other odd characters. "March of the Pigs" is a one-camera performance video in which Reznor cavorts before the band, knocking his microphone stand over continually. "Hurt" is an in-concert performance in which Reznor is dwarfed by giant images of animal hunting and decay, among other things. There is also an image gallery, the images being the same sort of strange insect and feather close-ups that make up the CD booklet, and a discography that includes excerpts from the Nine Inch Nails' videos Closure and All That Could Have Been. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide