Nine Inch Nails - Bad Witch

    For anyone who has read more than two entries by me, they know I've always been a long time Nine Inch Nails fan. The reason I've always liked this band was because it's almost as if it's a new band every release, just with similar common threads. Much like Bowie, Trent has never gotten comfortable with a specific sound or formula. Aside from a few great tracks off albums here and there, the last front to back good release in my opinion was With Teeth in 2005.

Nine Inch Nails - Bad Witch

 

I have to be honest, I was not expecting to be blown away by this EP. The single "God Break Down the Door" sounded like a blatant rip off of the latest Bowie material, mixed with cheesy haunted house remix beats. I have a process for listening to new music I want to fully digest. I always listen to it all the way through two times before opening up my mouth to friends or this blog. Most of their latest stuff I catch myself making faces like I just ate a lemon Warhead candy, but after the second listen I find redeeming qualities in certain tracks. With this, even before I listened a second time, I was immensely inspired and impressed. I started sending out pictures of the cover to people that didn't even like NIN in excitement. It was exactly what I needed to hear in general for new music, especially Nine Inch Nails.  

 

The first track will make you make your pp feel funny, and by time you're on the last track you'll have several bodily fluids to clean up from your trousers. Hailing back to their earlier sharper guitar tones - it's honestly just the sheer volume and production that will catch your ears at first. Aggressive vocals, driving drums, great hooks but under a bed of noise and fuzz. After a second listen, you'll realize it's also a very well written song. By the third listen, you've already got it fully stuck in your head.

 

The mix itself is fucking crazy. At times it will sound like the entire track is distorted, then a lead part comes in and sounds so smooth and clean over top of all it, without sounding out of place. Production was never ever an issue with this band. It's easy to make something "sound good" but write a shitty song underneath. I'm fully aware of how dangerous it is writing music in a recording studio. Having access to make everything sound flawless sometimes has you focus more on tones rather than arrangements. Trent has always used technology and production as another writing tool, not a crutch.    

 

 

Another huge element to the EP's this year is saxophone. Trent played it growing up as a child but it was never a main ingredient to this band. It may have been the consistent Bowie inspiration, or it really could just be as pure as trying something new. Either way, it's a strange but very rich element that I'd love to see pulled off live. I'm happy to hear it being used more as a freelance type track rather than simply taking over as a lead.

 

In short, this release is a 10/10 for me. I will always and forever get that Christmas morning feeling when a new Nine Inch Nails record comes out. Much like Christmas, sometimes you get sweaters and shit you didn't really expect, but it's still an incredibly important event and you always have next year to get whatever present you feel so entitled to have received, like the brat you are. Luckily, this Christmas I got everything I wanted and more.

 

I cannot fucking wait until October to see these dudes live!

 

-Novak

 

Escape

   Before you begin your 10 second excursion into the abyss that is this blog, here are some posts much like this one but with a little twist:

   The first "zone out music" blog post: https://illustriouswords.blogspot.com/2015/05/zone-out-music.html
   Jonathan's commentary on "boring fucking posts no one reads about music you don't actually like":  https://illustriouswords.blogspot.com/2017/03/zone-out-music-updated.html
 

  Everyone wants to escape. Especially you if you're actually reading this blog. With everyone having access to an avalanche of digital shit being in just about everyone's pockets- it's even easier now these days to escape all day long. So how did people "escape" thousands of years ago without scrolling through Instagram? Did they just stare at the ground until they fell asleep? Maybe they'd count blades of grass in fields and hope they weren't eaten by a wild animal? Who knows. I can't even imagine what people would've done with shorter life spans, more diseases, far more mental and physical stress, and an unbearable general uncertainty of the world around them. If only they had Instagram, Las Vegas, TMZ for all the juicy gossip, and Tinder to get them through their days, right?

   Oh wait.. MUSIC! From physical experiences like local tribal chants and percussive dances all the way up to the immediacy of music being readily available to billions of people in seconds. Music has been a vehicle of various levels of escape (amongst many other things) for as long as humans have been on this planet, and always will be. It's also always had the various levels of escape to it. Most people use music to escape whether they write a four page blog that no one reads like this, or they just have the radio on in the background in their daily commute.

   It's truly fascinating seeing all the advancements in music technology. This could easily turn into an extremely lengthy debatable subject that most of my friends have differing levels of opinions on. the undebatable fact is the internet has changed the way we experience music forever. There are many things I and many people miss about the "old days" that make good points. Some pretty generic arguments are about release days. It used to be magical going to the store on a specific date, handing money to someone in a store, and going home to put this record or CD on in your home. However, not all bands had the money or hook ups to get to those stores - so you'd never know of them. Now you can listen in seconds to a record that may change your life, and even contact them all in seconds. The idea of eradicating large album artwork is a bummer too, but then again by in large most newer mainstream music isn't made to be digested as fully as it was in the past.

    Anyway, I haven't written in here in a while so I'm rambling. I'd like to do a podcast on that last paragraph because I think there could be some varying opinions. Someone come on there soon with me!

   This blog was supposed to be as simple as:

   Whatever big or small thought is trying to take my brain out of the real world - these albums do so in an extremely vivid way.

Sigur Ros - ( )

 

This is an old favorite. I've blogged about it before, but I feel like it gets more important after every listen. Hailing from the country I nearly crash my car daydreaming about daily, Iceland, these weirdos have been making uniquely beautiful music for a few decades. I was listening to it while taking a shower the other day and I feel like I fell into a wormhole and was floating weightlessly in a cloud above a world never touched/ruined by humans. Music is always an other worldy escape, but this is one of the few records that immediately and fully engulf me somewhere that almost feels physically removed from my surroundings.

Talking about music can be weird, especially records like these that make you feel so unexplainable. Much like taking photos at shows, when you look back it doesn't always capture the depth of the moment, but makes your brain go back to memory to fill in the blanks the photo or blog entry leaves blank. This blog is a pretty good example of that, at least in my entries. You can be as descriptive as you can with a sound, but it will always sound different in someone else's head.

Efterklang - Tripper
This is another zone out classic for me. The song "Doppelgänger" is an absolutely perfect song. From the soft electronic drones, the hypnotic pianos throughout, and the sleepy, spider web vocals - this album will put you in a trance like no other. This is one of the few bands that I still re-listen to tracks and hear things I didn't hear the first, or even 100th listen. A great example of well written songs presented in very complex, unique ways. I can't recommend this band and album enough!

I would love to be in a band like this. The idea of collaborating with these types of sounds and textures make me smile even imaging it. From the wonderful live visuals that accompany their shows to the sonic blanket it wraps you up in - bands like these continue to push me to make cooler, better shit.



This took up more time than I thought so bye.


 

 

 

 -Novak