'The Fragile' shows what NIN does best

To be honest, it's hard to tell. For every potentially upbeat track like "We're in This Together" where Reznor encouragingly - and, after a few spins, threateningly - screams, "We will make it through somehow," there's a line that reminds us that we're "too fucked up to care anymore" ("Somewhat Damaged"). Maybe he's making fun of us. Maybe he's laughing all the way to the bank. Maybe we're just puppets now, unable to tear ourselves away from his mad genius of clinical depression, using his wor

The Fragile

ds like a lyrical Prozac.

Or maybe he means it. There is something inherently truthful and forthright about Reznor's meticulously engineered, thickly layered music. "The Fragile" is studious in its effort to be exactly what Nine Inch Nails does best: angrily plaintive industrial with an insistent techno underbelly that was largely hinted at in their previous efforts. It's kept in the background on the first disc, slithering around the guitar and Reznor's snarls, but on the second disc the slow, twisting electronic element of madness rears up and builds to a desperate crescendo. At once stomach-turning and heartbreaking, "The Fragile" insanely attempts to one-up "The Downward Spiral" by leaping out of the realm of Reznor's one-man train-wreck of a psyche and into the real world with songs like "Starfuckers Inc." And just as insanely, it succeeds.

Embracing the quiet-loud-quiet trick of records past, Reznor creates some of the most beautiful music this side of white noise. Screaming choruses of a hundred voices flow into deceptively simple piano melodies, instrumental tracks alternate with catchy vocals and it all adds up to near perfection. The growling, wailing verses of "The Wretched," a title whose meaning cannot possibly mistaken for Reznor turning happy-go-lucky, scratch and claw at the sublime. "It didn't turn out the way you wanted it to," he explains, and suddenly "The Fragile" crystallizes not into a letter to his thronging fans but to himself. The second disc sees the anthemic "Starfuckers Inc." calling an unnamed rock star "a shallow little bitch," and the remainder of the track could as easily be about a mystery egotist as Reznor poking fun at himself.

To be fair, there are a lot of similar sounding tracks on "The Fragile," but that too is a trick that Reznor has pulled out of his bag before; in his case, it's more the tool of a symphony composer rather than a mundane, repetitive, burned-out rocker. He gives us thematic consistencies and a complete work in lieu of moldy, poorly constructed music. He gives us a thumping bassline that gives anything he's done before, from "Closer" to "Get Down Make Love," a run for its money. He gives us an outlet for all those despondent little voices in our heads.

And if Reznor doesn't give us his self, he tries to give the closest thing to it. He spent five years between albums trying to get his hands on it this time. Perhaps one day he'll find it and, at last, turn everything we know about what music can be on its head.

It wouldn't be his first time.

09-21-99