20th Anniversary of Nine Inch Nails’ fourth studio album With Teeth, originally released May 3, 2005. There’s something to be said for a band that continues to surprise you without selling out or drastically reinventing themselves with every release. With Nine Inch Nails, their mastery of heavy synth annihilation against crunchy beats was evident on their dramatic debut release Pretty Hate Machine (1989), refined on the landmark outing The Downward Spiral (1994), and continued to evolve with the arrival of With Teeth in 2005. The six years between their last release, 1999’s oft misunderstood and underappreciated The Fragile, and the final arrival of new music had been a turbulent period for chief NINer, Trent Reznor. A period of fame, drug addiction, more fame, more drugs chased by alcoholism, crippling depression and self-loathing/doubt culminated in a stint in rehab that offered clarity and a renewed sense of creativity that had previously eluded the newly inspired Reznor.
