Still (Album Version)

Album review

Returning from a five-year silence with The Fragile and its accompanying Fragility tour, Trent Reznor was at a dangerous low. Revealing past addictions, Reznor admitted that he was "sick" during most of the tour and that it wasn't "Nine Inch Nails at its best." Yet the entire dirty affair was documented on And All That Could Have Been, essentially a live "best-of" collection. Included on limited-edition releases was the intensely personal EP Still. It was the last time Reznor "sounded" like the Trent of old: feral and broken (everything from With Teeth onward has come from a healthier, less damaged man). Despite the mix of old and new, it remains a cohesive experience, a hidden gem in the NIN catalog.
Four previously released songs are reworked into organic and unpolished "acoustic" deconstructions: "The Fragile" and "The Day the World Went Away" reveal a bare-bones intimacy not found on their studio versions; a deep cut from The Downward Spiral ("The Becoming") amps up the intensity and paranoia once stripped of the layered atmospherics, and Pretty Hate Machine's "Something I Can Never Have" becomes all the more heartbreaking. By removing the meticulous production that he is famous for, Reznor ended up with a sound more raw, bloody, and visceral.
The new songs dialed back the aggression. Continuations of ideas for Mark Romanek's Robin Williams thriller, One Hour Photo, they sound completely at home in the context of The Fragile. Instrumental soundscapes like "Adrift & at Peace" (the contemplative finale to "La Mer"/"The Great Below") and "Gone, Still" are almost whimsical, while "The Persistence of Loss," which includes some of the dramatic horns from The Fragile, is uncomfortably ominous. Album highlight "And All That Could Have Been" is the only new song on the EP to include vocals. This lament finds Reznor begging the anonymous listener to save themselves from him while they can. It's a desperate plea, one that he'd usually be screaming into a microphone. Yet here, it's even more effective, as if he's already given up all hope. The crestfallen "Leaving Hope" ends the album on a gorgeous note, washing away the melancholy in a warm current, an electric buzz surging beneath the surface. Much like their hit song "Hurt," it is neither hopeful, nor completely hopeless: there's an uncertain confusion to it all. As the EP drones to a close, Reznor's faint wailing can be heard buried beneath the layers. He's screaming, but whether in desperation or defiance, only he knows.

© Neil Z. Yeung /TiVo