Nine Inch Nails (Photo courtesy Capitol Records)
Nine Inch Nails, the ambitious industrial project of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, has awoken! In June, NIN released Bad Witch, the final volume in a trilogy that began with 2016’s Not The Actual Events and 2017’s Add Violence. NIN scheduled two nights for The Anthem, and the first sold out, but tickets remain for their show on Wednesday, Oct. 10.
Dubbed Cold and Black and Infinite, the tour brings along the unusual pairing of indie rockers The Jesus and Mary Chain, who have also experienced an awaking of sorts, releasing their first new album in nearly 20 years in 2017, Damage and Joy.
Speaking to BBC Radio 6 earlier this year, Trent explained the pacing of the release for Bad Witch: “We started out with a rigid concept, having not written them all. As we finished Add Violence, we found ourselves… it felt too predictable. It felt like we were forcing things. Musically and storytelling-wise. The reason this has been delayed is because it took us a while for — what has become the third [record] — to reveal itself to us.”
Watch the official music video for “God Break Down the Door” by NIN on YouTube:
In a review for AllMusic, Neil Z. Yeung said the latest NIN album owes a bit to David Bowie.
“The heart of Bad Witch owes much to David Bowie and his final album, Blackstar. Instrumental jazz break ‘Play the Goddamned Part’ — which recalls Lost Highway’s ‘Driver Down’ expanded with more sax squeals and piano tinkering — serves as a five-minute introduction to the Lynch-ian noir of lead single ‘God Break Down the Door,’ an oddity in the NIN catalog that debuts Reznor’s hitherto unheard, Bowie-esque croon. Bad Witch closes with a pair of experimental squalls that devour nearly half of the album’s run time,” Neil wrote.
Nine Inch Nails
w/ The Jesus and Mary Chain, Kite Base
The Anthem
Wednesday, Oct. 10
Doors @ 6pm
$95/$175
All ages