By Jesse Cataldo

After years of exile, Trent Reznor, the lone member of post-industrial angst factory Nine Inch Nails, returned to the spotlight in 2003, when Johnny Cash released a cover of Reznor’s “Hurt” as his final single. “Hurt,” recorded as part of Cash’s career capping “American Recordings” series, seems as good a choice as any for a swan song, an almost ghastly mediation on regret, drug abuse and unclosed scars. With its release, Cash was praised for his pained interpretation, viewed by many critics as far superior to Reznor’s crass, melodramatic original.

Many critics seemed to miss the point that chiding Reznor for a lack of subtlety is like criticizing Liberace for being overdressed. The Downward Spiral is the best example of Reznor’s flair for high theatrics, a scorching, bombastic descent into Hell that is at times both filthy and fascinating. From the “did he just say that?” chorus of “Closer,” to the Nietzschian refrain of “Heresy,” Reznor leaves no stone unturned in disrupting the bounds of decency.

The Downward Spiral is an existential nightmare, a concept album most comparable in structure to Sartre’s “Nausea.” Reznor’s protagonist confronts morality and social convention like a bull in a china shop, crashing through the standards of religion (“Heresy”), sex (“Reptile”) and violence (“March of The Pigs”). The lyrical histrionics are justified by the operatic arc of the story, as we trace every curve of the downward spiral, plumbing the murky depths of the human psyche in the process. The trail leads from the bitterly sarcastic “Piggy” to the nihilistic rage of “Eraser.” “Hurt” follows as the epilogue to the shrieking denouement “The Downward Spiral,” which details the apparent suicide of our tortured protagonist.

Reznor was always more rock than shock, favoring meticulously crafted horror ambience over the cartoonish goth schlock of protégé Marilyn Manson. The musical backing here is a thick wall of sound that mashes chugging metal guitar against synth loops. Reznor’s most impressive feat is transposing the lyrical theme, of a man crushed by hate and self-loathing, into the music itself. This is shown most clearly in “The Becoming,” where the an acoustic guitar is swallowed by a deafening burst of mechanized noise.

Sonic Tomb