[EasyGallery id=’viewnineinchnailsgallery’]
This isn’t a review on NIN’S new disc “Hesitation Marks” per se but my personal musings on this band throughout my life. I remember seeing the video for “Head Like A Hole” on MTV in 1990 and immediately buying the cassette “‘Pretty Hate Machine” then raving about it to anyone who would listen.It’s still my favorite NIN album but one particular song stood out ….”Something I Can Never Have”.Being a gay man in a very small mid-western town I was looking for that one love to ….”make this all go away.” And sadly that didn’t seem attainable. I shed many a tears to this heartbreaking ballad. Flash forward to the summer of ’94. I’m in love..finally…..and “Downward Spiral” has been released. I will never forget walking down a street in Fort Wayne, Ind.holding hands with my lover, on our way to a gay bar. when a car slows down and someone leans out the window “Faggots” they yell and proceed to throw a beer bottle at us which shatters on a building behind us. We get inside and the song “Closer” comes on. “I want to feel you from the inside. I want to fuck you like an animal” Trent sings to this industrial groove. So many emotions came out….. from our assault earlier to years of repression from this small town boy. It just hit this nerve, so taboo, dangerous, and …so damn sexy. I just remember a sea of sweaty guys dancing and i never felt so alive!!! Autumn ’94 and my lover and I are no longer together. My heart is crushed and I feel numb and the song “Hurt” is always playing during my healing process.”The feeling disappears.you are someone else. i am still right here.”
I really liked many more songs by them “Wish,” “Starfuckers, Inc.” “The Day the world Went Away”, ‘Into The Void”,”Only”, ‘The Hand that Feeds”, “Every Day is Exactly the Same’, “Discipline” to name a few and ‘The Fragile’ ended the 90’s on a great note and was sadly their last good album. They put out a few more albums in the ’00s but nothing excited me as a whole cohesive package. Also nothing affected me emotionally like their early nineties music until’ 2011 with Trent & Atticus'”Hand Covers Bruise” which reminds me of my younger brother’s death. So here we are 2013 and NIN’s new disc “Hesitation Marks” is their best work since ‘Downward Spiral.” I heard the first single off of it “Came back Haunted” a couple months ago and it reminds me of early NIN but less angry and even more danceable. “Copy Of A” is pure NIN and the better of the two singles. BUT the true standout is ‘Everything” which comes full circle in my journey. been with my partner for 18 years now and hopefully soon…this could be played at our wedding. “I am home, I believe….. I am home, I am free…I am home,I can see…..always here”
Standout tracks “In Two” , ‘I Would for You”,”Various Methods Of Escape” and “Running”
FINALLY!!!!!. Thank you NIN and WELCOME BACK!!!!!
~ Nathon Patrick