Hesitation Marks

The techno-noir sonic palette here is as eclectic as ever. [Oct 2013, p.90]

It was a given that Hesitation Marks would provide Nine Inch Nails with a future. But what's so impressive here is that it's given then a future every bit as promising as their illustrious past. [31 Aug 2013, p.52]

It boasts riveting tempos, gripping atmospheres, imaginative chopped 'n' screwed vocal tracks and a vague sense of currency via a bass drop or two. But it also feels incredibly rote and through-the-motions. [No. 103, p.58]

All intriguing and unique, but as the concluding third settles into shapeless moodiness, Hesitation Marks could've done with some pruning. [Oct 2013, p.87]

It’s an earnest and worthy effort to prove that this band can matter without the PMRC stickering its album cover.

On Hesitation Marks, Nine Inch Nails hints at new directions, but hesitates to take a leap.

As a whole, Hesitation Marks is an engaging and embracing listen, and it can certainly be said that, almost 25 years into a recording career, Reznor is still surprising listeners.

There’s a master at work, no doubt about it, but he’s already living in the future writing complex symphonies, letting the rest of us know that everything’s going to be ok.

While not his best album, Hesitation Marks shows that he has no intention to fall back on old formulas.

Hesitation Marks is a solid, if typical sampling of NIN's sound presented through traditional means.

The record lacks the depth found in Nine Inch Nail’s previous records and the engrossing brilliance of their more experimental leanings. All that aside, Hesitation Marks stands as incredibly solid, perhaps more so than any record put out by the band in over a decade.

Family life and a well-earned break have given this one-time Gothfather new tricks that pure despair could never provide.

Tense, electronic, impeccably crafted and, yes, a little bit too long (classic 90s alt-rock), it’s a satisfying twist on the band’s legacy that doesn’t abandon its signature sound.

There is nothing hesitant about this collection of songs which manage to be fraught with heated emotions while simultaneously composed of chilly, fidgety grooves.

Hesitation Marks makes it quite clear that Trent Reznor is no longer an angry young man but rather a restless, inventive artist who is at peace with himself, and the result is a record that provides real, lasting nourishment.

Hesitation Marks follows the musical lineage that began with The Fragile, but it surpasses recent NIN albums thanks to a deeply personal thematic core and a willingness to push the songwriting into territory that is often dancier and poppier than listeners have come to expect from the band.

Sure, the societal spying and corruption Reznor forecast in The Slip has played out, but Hesitation Marks is a triumphal I-told-you-so, still whispering for rebellion.

Lyrically and vocally, he is hardly nuanced. His humorless, monochromatic tone tempers Hesitation Marks with many shades of dry bummer, the well-worn path winding through a field of flowers.

Too much of Hesitation Marks sounds tentative.

This is the sound of a cleaner, smoother Nine Inch Nails, one that delights in complexities of rhythm more than caustic blasts of rage.

No other Nine Inch Nails record has been so mindful of dance and electronic trends from outside its own bubble, or the resurgence of many of these sounds recently. It’s a nice surprise from a radio-rock band returning to the majors without a guilty conscience for wanting to sell his art for $10.

It’s obvious on the rest of the album that the fear of living isn’t holding Reznor back anymore. This outlook has given a huge boost to NIN’s creativity, and helped the group re-emerge as a relevant, vital, and still weird band.

Hesitation Marks proves greatness remains within Trent Reznor’s grasp.

For every circuit-overloading workout like “Copy of A” and “Disappointed”, there are a number of tracks where Reznor reverts to the teeth-gnashing angst of old without the pig-marching blitzkriegs to back it up, applying undue pressure on the the songs’ brittle structures.

Reznor's first NIN album in five years, it is one of his best, combining the textural exploration on the 1999 double CD The Fragile, and the tighter fury of his 1994 master blast, The Downward Spiral.

An album of bona fide radio hits in an ideal world, a fine example of mainstream rock at its most tasteful, music that’s going to be popular and sell a lot but that’s not afraid to subtly defy expectations of what its makers are.

In almost every way, this is the least outré effort NIN has proffered since Pretty Hate Machine. It's focused but inquisitive, as opposed to declarative.

The musician is famously exacting when it comes to sound and, predictably, the album is impeccably produced. What's shocking, though, is that at moments it sounds--whisper it--delicate.

It's the danger that comes from walking that fine line [the nexus of sonic experimentation and pop hooks] that makes the album such a welcome return.

A nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live here.

This is the most important artistic statement from NIN leader Trent Reznor since the late '90s.

By playing both to nostalgic sensibilities and trying to literally occupy the same territory he once did, Hesitation Marks is only welcome in that it puts Nine Inch Nails on tour. But, for the album itself, the good ideas seem to have been wasted on trying to revive something that killed itself years ago.

Any fans missing the brutal force of Head Like a Hole are pointed towards Copy of A and Came Back Haunted, two of the strongest tunes of his career.

The most complete archiving of everywhere Nine Inch Nails has been, but more than that a jaw-dropping preview of everywhere it can go.

It's a roiling, often tense, but just a little more calm and contemplative NIN, seemingly content to emerge and exist rather than to sweep all before it or punctuate a point.

Sure, it’s chorus-driven and a touch too slick, lacking the density and the ambition and the sheer bloody nihilism of NIN’s 90’s heyday, but Reznor’s not that guy anymore--that guy died with the heroin overdose. But there are more than enough moments here to suggest a maker not--whatever the protestations of one of its tracks--yet at peace.

Black gothic grandeur, but with a beige, biscuit-coloured centre. [Oct 2013, p.72]

Hesitation Marks, the new album from Nine Inch Nails, is both business as usual and remarkably prescient.