If Mr. Reznor had released a 10 song CD with the best songs from these sessions, I would be singing its praise. The diamonds are buried pretty deep in shit.
Trent’s back to find his guitar sounds co-opted, his beats carjacked, and his lyrics… well, he got to keep something. Only thing is, they got it all wrong.
I have no problem with the whisper-to-a-scream thing, but it won’t work if you don’t have Nirvana’s tunes or Black Sabbath’s riffs, and The Fragile has neither.
The relentless barrage of bleak symbolism and stylized squalor can get a tad wearying in a single sitting, but you’re unlikely to find better all in one place.
David Lynch enlisted the services of Trent Reznor to compile its soundtrack, in much the same way Rezzie put together the collage for Natural Born Killers.