#2539 Nine Inch Nails - Less Than

Nine Inch Nails' 21st century output's always felt a little understuffed* -- the EP format's a good fit. There's a drip-feed of interesting applications of that electronics//guitar//noise//anger//piano-reverb cocktail, so give it up in sensible doses. There's nothing here we haven't seen before, but it's in slightly different configurations and interesting enough when we have the space to forget the last batch.

Before we dismiss this for good: a few words for The Background World, which ends with 8 minutes of slowly-degrading repetition. It's a poor-man's Disintegration Loops, trading analog decay for knob-turning obliteration, and most notably putting just a little     gap     between the repetitions --- breaking the flow. But maybe that negative space, as a fencepost, makes for a final, hard-edged distinction to erase, as we fall into a full-scale clattering buzz.

Familiar, sure, but _just_ different enough to give you a chin-scratch, which is a sweet-spot I don't get to roll around in often enough 3.5/5

* except when it goes around the horn, sprawling its balls off on the endless Ghosts collection