Nine Inch Nails - Add Violence EP

Now, some of you know me personally and some of you don't.  But if you do, then you know that Nine Inch Nails are my second favorite band of all time.  This is a band that for years blew me away with the intensity of albums like "Broken" and "The Downward Spiral".  But around the time of the 2000's, people started to cool their jets on Nine Inch Nails.  Albums like "With_Teeth" and "Year Zero", as solid as albums they are, took a whole lot to get into and weren't nearly as instantly gratifying.  By the time "Hesitation Marks" came out a few years back, sadly Trent Reznor felt like he had checked out.  But last year, Nine Inch Nails released their "Not The Actual Events" EP, a small collection of songs that showed Nine Inch Nails refreshed after taking a few years off.  This was some of the heaviest and darkest material Trent Reznor had delivered in years.  He promised us another EP would be here soon, and here we are! Let's talk about it!

(The track that instantly made me fall in love with NIN)

    This EP starts off with “Less Than”, and right away let’s address the elephant in the room.  That synth line is gigantic and shows Trent once again going for more of an old school sound.  It’s a totally different sound than the grungy and heavy industrial sound of the last EP, however, which I don’t think is a bad thing at all.   Just the opposite actually, I think it really adds to the very icy, paranoid feel that Trent was going for on here.  I feel like in a lot of ways this reminds me of the material on Year Zero as far as sound goes, but also as far as the tone goes.  It has that slight, political, Dystopian edge with a grim look towards the future that made albums like “Year Zeo” so good.   While this isn’t breaking any new ground for NIN, this is a really solid, aggressive, and confident track.  It’s catchy where it needs to be, while also remaining muscular and heavy.  It’s a great opening to this EP, to be honest.  Not to mention, Trent just sounds so damn hungry, so pissed off, it’s where I love hearing him.  This EP remains just as icy and cold with “The Lovers”, but this one get’s a whole lot darker and FAST.  I feel like this sounds a little more like what we got on the last NIN EP but more synthetic.  Trent’s softly spoken monolog is actually really effective and downright chilling.  To be honest, I really think this track’s atmosphere is its greatest attribute.  Because as far as vocals go, this is probably the most boring track you’re going to find here.  At least as far as the lead vocals go.  Because I actually think Trent’s very manic and twisted whispering in the background works really great for “The Lovers”.  Instrumentally, I also would have liked a little bit of a switch-up as well.  So yeah, this one is probably my least favorite track here, but it’s really not that bad at all.  But then we have “This Isn’t The Place”.  While this one remains very icy and synthetic, it’s also oddly human sounding and really somber.  This actually ends up reminding me a LOT of some of the deeper cuts on “The Fragile”.  It’s a patient track and is very cautious sounding, but at the same time, each piano note is just filled with so much emotion.  I actually think “This Isn’t The Place” ends up coming off seriously beautiful.  Especially after just how aggressive this album started.  Then we have Trent’s vocals, which just come off ghoulish and haunting, and seriously broken sounding.  And do I even have to point out these lyrics?  The lyrics here are some of Trent’s simpler ones, but they’re all so powerful that they give this track such an incredibly lonely sound.  I honestly can't remember the last time I heard Trent singing with this much sorrow.  So hell yes, this track works great.  The pacing on this one is just so well done as well, as each note slowly moves onwards I really don’t know what I’m going to hear next.  It’s what drew me to Trent’s music years ago, and it’s what draws me to it still to this day.  

    This EP continues with the muddier and much denser sounding “Not Anymore”.  To be honest, it’s really great to hear Trent working with these much more raw recordings and bringing back that industrial metal sound.    But I didn’t really know what to take from this track just from its intro.  But man, as this track picks up and bursts into its gigantic and overpowering chorus, it’s classic NIN all around.  As far as a noisy, aggressive sound goes, this is the biggest thing we’ve heard from Trent Reznor in a very long time.  His music continues to be patience testing and in need of a listen or two.  But with tracks as explosive as “Not Anymore”, it’s certainly worth it.  Even that extended synth portion in the last minute comes off great.  This EP closes out with the 11-minute monolith that is “The Background World”.  This one starts off with an extra slick groove the likes that I haven’t heard of in a long time from Nine Inch Nails.  It’s bass heavy, it’s sleazy, and of course it’s very dark.  But there’s also a return to the very sort of Sexualized sound that NIN ruled the airwaves with in the 90’s.  But I’d be lying if I said it didn’t come off great. There’s a real sense of mystery too, within that very Sci-Fi sounding synths just out of reach, as well as the bizarre strings that pop in around the 2-minute mark.  But as this track roll on and gets funkier and more and heavier, it just gets more enjoyable.  I continue to get a seriously strong “The Fragile” vibe from this, but it also has the very Sci-Fi heavy elements of “Year Zero” as well.  I can’t stress enough how excited this makes me for the future of Nine Inch Nails.  The only thing that really kept this EP from getting an even better score from me, was the last 8 minutes of “The Background World”.  I’m all for noisy, adventures passages.  But the last 8 minutes of this EP is completely unnecessary and boring.  Outside of that, this EP is fantastic, now c’mon Trent, give us the damn album already.

Rating: 7.7/10

Give A Listen To: "Less Than", "This Isn't The Place", "Not Anymore", the first 4 minutes of so of "The Background World"


Overall Thoughts:  For the second time this year, Nine Inch Nails has totally gotten my hopes up for anything they have planned for the future.  Trent and companies sound these days has gotten to be its darkest and heaviest it's been since the days of "The Fragile", which is something I thought I would never say again.  Compared to the "Not The Actual Events" EP, "Add Violence" is much more synth heavy and more Sci-Fi sounding.  But it continues to be a really great change of pace for Nine Inch Nails.