This Week

Nine Inch Nails: Hesitation Marks

New release (Columbia; tour dates)
Photo of Trent Reznor by Baldur Bragson

Trent Reznor already came back haunted in March with the release of Welcome oblivion by How to destroy angels. That side project with Atticus Ross and (Reznor’s wife) Mariqueen Maandig took post-industrial/ambient music and made it sound fresh. By contrast, Hesitation Marks, Reznor’s first album in five years under the Nine Inch Nails moniker, seems beset by run-of-the-mill electronica. Ross and another veteran collaborator, Alan Moulder, return as co-producers with Reznor, but together they’re often just busy little techno-bees buzzing around Reznor’s generally average material.