Review: Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts I-IV (physical disc release)

by Kevin Eagan

I have to be honest, it came as a big shock to me when I first read that Nine Inch Nails would be leaving Interscope records, opting instead to release their albums independently. Don't get me wrong, Nine Inch Nails has always been a band willing to try new things and branch out into new experiments, but they never struck me as the type of band that would leave behind the marketing machine.

Trent Reznor's creative energy has defined the so-called industrial sounds of 1990s metal. At the same time, his marketing genius (yes, it still exists in music today) created a brand that goes beyond the music. From NIN's popular symbol to the concept of halo (a system that numbers each NIN album that's before its time, the halo series of computer games seeming oddly reminiscent), Reznor's marketing abilities and the label that supported it was a rare breed.

However, Reznor's frustration with his label had nothing to do with the past or his wild success throughout the '90s, it had to do with his rejection of a broken system, a cause many musicians have taken up with the same fury Reznor has displayed. 2007 was the year that many artists sought independence, leaving the major labels wallowing in their own incompetence. Music historians will look back at Reznor's decision as part of a major turning point in the record industry, seen as a time when musicians were taking control and the indie market thrived like never before as a result.

So I won't go over it again or continue the comparisons between Reznor's decision and Radiohead's or any other bands or musicians. The fact is that Nine Inch Nails - the brand, the artistry, and the artist himself - is now free to do whatever it wants in more ways than it ever has nearly twenty years after it broke through with 1989's wildly successful and artistically revolutionary Pretty Hate Machine. Reznor does so with his most ambitious project yet, Ghosts I-IV, an experiment in instrumentation and soundscape that isn't weighed down by political messages or philosophical debates, but is instead out there for the listener to do with it what he or she pleases.

Revolving around four movements, Ghosts I-IV takes all of the electronic noise of 1999's The Fragile and 2007's Year Zero and throws it all together in a random mix; Reznor swears there's no overall theme to Ghosts, but there is plenty of musical beauty that replicates the arid deserts and the fluid oceans in one long breath.

Within Reznor's lengthy and expansive soundscape are some moments of pure bliss, the moments where listeners of NPR's World Cafe can hold hands in unity with the tattooed punks that once defined Reznor's marketability. Ghosts begins with a sublime piano played so quietly that you can hear Reznor's feet shift on the open pedals, and even though the riff he plays sounds oddly familiar, it's haunting enough that it brings you in and keeps you hooked. Electronic choirs hum around the piano as Reznor reveals what haunts him at night, and we're left feeling the presence of something not of this world.

From there, Ghosts starts to sound a bit too familiar, and by the end of its first movement it feels more like the leftover instrumental samples from 2007's Year Zero. Reznor ends this movement with the distorted guitars of his past, excoriating the "ghosts" of his heyday to come back down into the piano and electronic noise of beauty that has solidified his standing as a mature and welcoming musician.

However, by the third and fourth movements of Ghosts, Reznor has you convinced that something has changed, that artistic experimentation is possible without the controlling force of a major label. At the same time, Ghosts doesn't forget the structures and sounds that made NIN what it is today, and Reznor's experiment won't alienate the majority of his fans. If anything, he's brought in new fans, since many listeners now see Nine Inch Nails as an important part of rock music's changing face instead of a flash in the pan.

By the second disc (movements III and IV), the remaining tropes and figures that have defined this record come to the forefront, and even with the masking of industrial noise, a positivity takes over the music. It's as if the listener has finally made it over the arid wasteland to discover an oasis of life, and Reznor is ready to give them something in return. As movement III transitions into IV, the band takes on a fully fledged distortion of sound with beautiful melody, and as IV begins, everything seems to come together and it's no longer about pitting disparate noises against each other, it's about finding some type of coherence in the soundscape, some type of beauty that transcends the sound itself.

Through a completely instrumental experiment, Ghosts I-IV has fully solidified Reznor's standing as a musical pioneer of our time. Even as he sometimes falls into his own bubble of marketing, Reznor has shown that it's all about the music and less about the fans' tastes. Those who have wanted something new from this band should take note: Ghosts I-IV signals that Nine Inch Nails is not interested in the hype, but rather the substance of independent music, and it's willing to yell "fuck you" to the establishment - not because it sounds cool, but because it's necessary. With that, I hope Ghosts I-IV continues the expansive creativity Nine Inch Nails has pioneered over the years, and I look forward to hearing whatever they provide in the future.