I've got to kick off this review by saying that I am positively dumbfounded by how many music critics just do not get this record. I have read so many reviews saying that all the familiar self-loathing and angst is back, and that could not be more untrue. People, this record features high-voiced crooning, prettily performed piano ballads and songs about getting over your damned self by Trent Reznor! I contend, in fact, that With Teeth is unremittingly positive: it's about affirmation, accepting responsibility for one's demons, phoenix-like resurgence, and pulling oneself together, for crissakes. There is nothing desolate, desperate, or otherwise despairing about With Teeth.
In view of that, I can't believe how many rock critics are shamefully not worth their salt, and I want to especially call out Rob Sheffield, who wrote Rolling Stone's golden handshake, and whose review reads like he saw the "Wish" video years ago, and listened to 45 seconds of each song before writing it. I can only guess that after years of Reznor's melodramatic angst, some critics have just become inured to all the yowling, drama and volume. That's legitimate, I suppose, both in view of the yowling, and the fact that professional rock critics probably spend all day churning out glib reviews, but there's been a sea change in the Empire of Dirt, and a glib once-over is no response to an artist like Trent Reznor.
The evidence that we're on new ground is there from the outset. With Teeth opens with "All The Love In The World", a song that is just an unabashed sonic pleasure, and features the aforementioned piano and crooning, blending Reznor's soft touch and hard edges with deft tunefulness. Asking the rhetorical question, "Why do you get all the love in the world?" very likely of his monstrous and obsessively worshipped persona as a gut-wrenched feral animal, this song makes as convincing a case as I can imagine for health being a better field to plow than sickness for a man of Reznor's talents. Especially nice is the way he cuts himself off in the verses before allowing it to work up into a lather of cliched whinging ("Sometimes I get so lonely I could... /Why do you get all the love in the world?"), and even better is how, midway through, the piano ushers in layers of joyful harmony before it builds into a funky and gorgeous revelry in pure sound. "All The Love In The World" has the feeling of a man who has found his voice after a long loss, and remembered that it was beautiful. It also introduces us to Reznor's piano, which, throughout this CD, feels like a character in the narrative of With Teeth in an almost literary sense - one who wanders around in fields of noise, appears prettily around corners of volume, and shores up mountains of electronic buzz and beat with a sort of elemental calming warmth - as if the piano is the musical proxy of the better angels of Reznor's nature.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Kate
THIS is a beautiful column. Just what I was hoping for to intorduce me to his new work. More thanks.
2 - bryan
What a beautiful breakdown of a truly wonderful record. For all of his Reznor's recent talk about this not being a concept album, I think this critic has revealed the real truth at play -- this is the work of an artist who has rediscovered his voice, and he's neither going through the motions because he can (U2) nor keeping his emotional core at that safe, arms' length distance so prevelant in benign radio rock (Weezer).
Ms. Nichols is right -- this is a record of resurgence and rebirth, but in a sense it's collaborative. It's the Artist proposing that we meet up with him in his place of new, revitalized world-view, with nothing more than the joy of his abilities and the convictions of his his beliefs to show the way.
Challenging himself. Challenging us. The line does begin to blur.
3 - jason
finally...thank you for realizing the beauty that is "with teeth"
4 - jason
and for anyone who wants to go even deeper into this cd's message, I suggest reading "The Lathe of Heaven" by Ursula K. LeGuin, trent cited this source once during the recording of the album for a small amount of time on the homepage.
5 - Zaldor
Very good review - I couldn't have said it better myself! This is beginning to be one of Trent's best works... :)
6 - Dawn
Another excellent review! Have to get this cd asap.
7 - Mark Saleski
one of the best reviews i've read in a while here.
...and now i've gotta get the danged cd too.
8 - Howler
Thank you for such a thoughtful review! You are so right about this record. I think it's Reznor's best.
9 - Eric Olsen
just super Jaime, you have penetrated the Trentian psyche. Thanks!
10 - Jaime Nichols
Eric & everybody else: Thanks for the compliments. I'm all a-flutter. It's nice to be able to write a response to this very nice record that frankly, I love the bejesus out of. As for penetrating the Trentian psyche, I think you should be careful when using the words "penetrate" and Trent" in the same sentence. Cue Beavis and Butthead-style sniggering.
Blogcritics is fun! Thanks for having me.
11 - brian
wow! I already know how beautiful the record is, but also, what an amazing review of how beautiful it is.
12 - David
excellent review. there's a few conceptual artists out there in the music industry. NIN being one of them. Having the privilege to deal with a performer as open-minded and conscious about his work like he is, it's a real delight for listeners and quite too rare in 2005.
13 - onebyone
THE best review I have read yet. It is nice to hear someone not only get the CD, aka that Trent is better and not ashamed, but to welcome that.
14 - Max
I very much enjoyed reading your review. It's nice to see someone actually peel back the surface when reviewing With Teeth, and truly understand that this record is not about teen angst, being isolated or all that other whiney shit that many "professional" reviewers label Trent with these days.
Great review!
15 - deco
finally someones gets the album the way it sounds to me... thank u, there is a god^^
16 - Kim
Thank you so much for writing this review. Yours is the only one I've read so far that's bothered to see the album for what it truly is, and you took the words right out of my mouth.
17 - themarina
Brilliant review. As per everyone eleses comments, it was wonderful to read a review that took into consideration the new NIN and didn't just provide the same rehash of years past.
Well done. And yes, the album is fantastic.
18 - Taylor Pile
Dude, I totally agree. I've been reading all these reviews and most are giving the album average marks. I can't believe it. Read this crap.
If you scroll down this guy is review the album and calls it "White Teeth" wtf is that? And he states that reznor hasn't pushed the envelope enough. Agian, wtf? I haven't heard anything this groundbreaking since his last album. Reznor is light years ahead of any musician out today and I stand behind that.
Thanks for hearing the album and giving it the review it deserves.
NIN
19 - Jake
VERY well written. Thank you, it was nice to actually read a review for With Teeth by somebody who actually knows what they're talking about. Thanks again.
20 - dan
This review was as good of a review as with teeth is of an album.(excelent!)
21 - Patrick
I was beginning to wonder if any of the reviewers had this perspective on the cd. Awesome job and this should be the article in Rolling Stone rather than the horrible one they wrote. Thank you.
22 - john murran
" WITH THE TEETH AH! "
great review, thanks.
i want money back from my yearly roling stone subcribtin, so diapointed.
23 - Mark
Man...i'm so glad someone finally wrote a true review. Everything in this article is exactly what I heard in the album. It wasn't another self loathing album but a look at two different personalities, and realizing the things he created in himself and around him. Great review and AWESOME album.
24 - T'Kir
This is one of the best album reviews I have read in a long time, it was both a gratifying read and very thoughtful!
I like your alternative suggestion for the meaning of The Hand That Feeds... although my first hearing of the track made me think of Trents acrimonious split with his ex-manager (before I read the lyrics and the interviews stating the war aspect).
I would've liked to have heard your thoughts on the other tracks not mentioned in your review: Getting Smaller ('flip-flop'), Sunspots, The Line Begins to Blur and Beside You in Time. But anyway, a really enjoyable review :-)
25 - static
YOU GET IT! An excellent review for an incredible album! Thank you for being the one critic that is open-minded!
This is yet another NIN album that proves to be a brilliant work of art. There are few artists that remain that have the integrity, the vision and the follow-through to create the whole package deal... that which consists of the music, the design and the performance. Very inspirational! In fact, I think I'm going to lock myself in my studio right now...