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Welcome to Kerrang!'s essential guide to the greatest bands rocking our world. Discover new acts or re-acquaint yourselves with the legends... it all starts here.

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Nine Inch Nails

WELDING DARK hearted lyrics to virulent, keyboard-heavy industrial music, Nine Inch Nails - master minded by multi-instrumentalist and technological wizard Trent Reznor - turned alternative music on its head when they emerged in 1989. Although his live band has featured a seemingly ever-changing line up - largely attributed to the immensely destructive nature of their performances - their shows have been consistently complex, elaborately produced and emotionally involving spectacles that capture the essence of their music. Gaining a phenomenal cult following that soon infected the mainstream, the bleak imagery they conjured connected with an audience ravaged by the grunge years and consistently draws new converts from the ranks of the disillusioned today. With 1994's punishing 'The Downward Spiral' widely heralded as a masterpiece, and Reznor's groundbreaking work in the realms of film soundtracks, production and remixing, his impact on modern music cannot be underestimated and he continues to be a vital and invigorating figure determined to kick against musical stagnancy.

The Downward Spiral
Name: The Downward Spiral Label: INTERSCOPE Year: 1994
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Review: A CONCEPT album detailing one man's descent into self-destruction, 'The Downward Spiral' is one of the defining rock records of the early '90s. Displaying breathtaking invention and variety, it's a deeply textured work that takes in everything from metallic violence to fragile ambience, repeatedly reinventing the rules along the way. A modern masterpiece.

Pretty Hate Machine
Name: Pretty Hate Machine Label: TVT Year: 1989
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Review: THE ABUNDANCE of synths has dated 'Pretty Hate Machine' but time has done little to dent the impact of NIN's debut. Fusing huge hooks and a colossal rhythmic punch to desolate lyrics, the album dragged industrial music from the underground into the mainstream and, pre-'Nevermind', provided the soundtrack to the lives of disillusioned teenagers everywhere.

With Teeth
Name: With Teeth Label: INTERSCOPE Year: 2005
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Review: FOLLOWING A six-year hiatus, 'With Teeth' showed Reznor reigning in his pretensions and delivering the most focused NIN record in over a decade. With a restored emphasis on groove (best typified by the disco stomp of 'The Hand That Feeds') and a more direct approach to song writing, this is a powerful collection that proved the band's continued relevance.

The Fragile
Name: The Fragile Label: INTERSCOPE Year: 1999
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Review: AT A mammoth 23 tracks, ambitious is the best word to describe the difficult, double disc follow up to 'The Downward Spiral'. Undermined by a lack of focus, there is an amazing 15-song album in here somewhere and when it hits it right, as on 'We're In This Together', it really is Reznor at his multi-layered, emotionally charged, experimental best.

Things Falling Apart
Name: Things Falling Apart Label: INTERSCOPE Year: 2000
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Review: NINE INCH Nails have released several remix albums over their career. If 1995's 'Further Down The Spiral' that reworked 'The Downward Spiral' to dramatic effect is the best of the bunch, the nadir is this largely pointless collection of remixes from 'The Fragile'. With many fans alienated by the source material, this one really is for dedicated completists.

    Key Nine Inch Nails Tracks
  • A WARM PLACE

    LIKE TAKING a bath in amniotic fluid, this brittle, ambient instrumental provides affecting and essential respite from the aural violence that rages all around it.

    Find on iTunes Find It: 'The Downward Spiral', 1994
  • BURN

    THE ONLY original NIN song on the Reznor-constructed 'NBK' soundtrack, 'Burn' is a feral blast of speaker-destroying violence. Music made to break you.

    Find on iTunes Find It: 'Natural Born Killers Original Soundtrack', 1994
  • CLOSER

    THERE'S NO ignoring an evil disco song with a chorus built on the phrase 'I want to fuck you like an animal'. Period.

    Find on iTunes Find It: 'The Downward Spiral', 1994
  • DEAD SOULS

    A FAITHFUL cover of the Joy Division classic, this addition to the soundtrack of 'The Crow' is an anthem for wearers of eyeliner everywhere.

    Find on iTunes Find It: 'The Crow Original Soundtrack', 1994
  • EVERY DAY IS EXACTLY THE SAME

    COMPELLING IN its moroseness, a smouldering, keyboard-heavy song that is strangely soothing as it works its way under your skin.

    Find on iTunes Find It: 'With Teeth', 2005
  • HAPPINESS IN SLAVERY

    WITH A long-banned video detailing the systematic evisceration of a man by some truly nightmare-inducing machinery, this is Reznor at his ugliest.

    Find on iTunes Find It: 'Broken', 1992
  • HEAD LIKE A HOLE

    THIS POUNDING storm of computerised rhythms, ominous synths and scathing guitars is the ultimate pre-1990s alt-rock anthem for the disaffected.

    Find on iTunes Find It: 'Pretty Hate Machine', 1989
  • HURT

    NOW MORE commonly associated with Johnny Cash due to his haunting cover released in 2002, this is a spine-tingling conclusion to a devastating record.

    Find on iTunes Find It: 'The Downward Spiral', 1994
  • MARCH OF THE PIGS

    STORMING DRUMS, roaring guitars and discordant keyboards erupt under vicious screams before collapsing momentarily into one of the most lunatic breaks in heavy music.

    Find on iTunes Find It: 'The Downward Spiral', 1994
  • RIGHT WHERE IT BELONGS

    REVISITING THE bleak territory occupied by 'Hurt', the sign off from 'With Teeth' is an atmospheric, balladic trawl through the deepest darkest recesses of Reznor's psyche.

    Find on iTunes Find It: 'With Teeth', 2005
  • SOMETHING I CAN NEVER HAVE

    BUILT ON haunting piano and synthesized strings, this proved that Reznor knew true emotional heaviness is not necessarily derived from distortion pedals and screaming.

    Find on iTunes Find It: 'Pretty Hate Machine', 1989
  • SOMEWHAT DAMAGED

    WITH A vicious refrain of 'Too fucked up to care anymore!' the opening track of 'The Fragile' is a slow-building, threatening slab of despair.

    Find on iTunes Find It: 'The Fragile,' 1999
  • STARFUCKERS, INC

    ALLEGEDLY TARGETING Courtney Love and Marilyn Manson who had fallen out of favour with Mr Reznor, this is every bit as acerbic as it is infectious.

    Find on iTunes Find It: 'The Fragile', 1999
  • TERRIBLE LIE

    EXUDING MENACE, 'Terrible Lie' remains a staple of the NIN live show, the chorus awash with an ambience both savagely lacerating and skin-crawlingly disturbing.

    Find on iTunes Find It: 'Pretty Hate Machine', 1989
  • THE DAY THE WORLD WENT AWAY

    A LUMBERING dirge built on sludgy guitars and a brief snatch of depressive lyrics that gives way to the most downbeat 'nah-nah' chorus ever recorded.

    Find on iTunes Find It: 'The Fragile', 1999
  • THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL

    THE MOST unnerving song in Nine Inch Nails' catalogue, the sound of truly losing hope set to dissonant guitars and strangulated screams.

    Find on iTunes Find It: 'The Downward Spiral', 1994
  • THE HAND THAT FEEDS

    BUILT ON throbbing disco grooves and with a chorus so catchy you'd need to shoot yourself to ensure removal from your head. An arse-shaking classic.

    Find on iTunes Find It: 'With Teeth', 2005
  • THE PERFECT DRUG

    PERHAPS THE quintessential NIN song, this distills everything that is great about Reznor's sound - eerie atmosphere, huge chorus and remorseless rhythms - into a storming mini-epic.

    Find on iTunes Find It: 'Lost Highway Original Soundtrack', 1997
  • WE'RE IN THIS TOGETHER

    WITH A stark and haunting video accompanying pummelling drums and Reznor at his full-throated best, probably the only 'obvious' single from epic double-album 'The Fragile'.

    Find on iTunes Find It: 'The Fragile', 1999
  • WISH

    WHEN THIS detonated in 1992, the torrent of multilayered drums, guitar and digital noise stopped everyone in their tracks - a defining moment in modern metal.

    Find on iTunes Find It: 'Broken', 1992
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