And All That Could Have Been cover

And All That Could Have Been

Released

This live album, recorded on Nine Inch Nails’ tour in support of the 1999 album The Fragile, does not capture the band at a creative peak. The Fragile was a quieter, softer, more melancholy album than its predecessor, The Downward Spiral, and while Trent Reznor and company were still a strong live draw (the Fragility tour took place in arenas), the new material didn’t sit that well alongside the older stuff. Furthermore, hearing such intensely first-person lyrics about pain and despair as arena singalongs is a weird experience. That said, the band reshapes the songs for the stage, and achieves some real thrills in the process. “Gave Up” is a bigger highlight than most of the “hits,” and “Suck,” a song Reznor originally recorded with weirdo industrial-noise-improv all-star project Pigface, is a surprising deep cut.

Phil Freeman

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