5/6
I’ve been looking forward to this album since the release of “Came Back Haunted.” One part vintage Nine Inch Nails, one part mind-warping innovation Hesitation Marks brings both an electronic tone and the grinding guitar that Nine Inch Nails does so well. Combine that with Trent’s gravely, sexy voice and you get an album that is exhaustingly hard-edged and wonderfully raw, despite the studio polish.
Vocalist and Nine Inch Nails’ mastermind, Trent Reznor worked with Atticus Ross on this album. Ross’ contributes an eerie layer of electronic sound that ripples beneath, the patter of drum work. Neatly stack some subtly distorted guitar work over this and it slowly shapes into a delightful totality of effect that makes the listener’s hair stand on end.
The meticulous precision of the layering and flawless blending in Hesitation Marks is pure genius. As background music, it is seamlessly cohesive. Up close it becomes an intensely complex, ornate masterpiece. The mixing is nothing short of perfection.
The vocals are, as always, deliciously raspy and dripping with pain. Reznor’s voice is distinctive and flawlessly articulate. He knows exactly how to use it to achieve whatever he sets out to achieve.
On the whole this album is innovative, yet familiar. It’s a treat for both fans of the harder industrial sound and the ambient electronic sound.
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