BAD WITCH

Brevity is good; I would rather listen to 30 minutes of solid music than an album of 30 minutes of the exact same music plus 20-40 minutes of filler. And 30 minutes of solid music is exactly what Nine Inch Nails offers here; Trent Reznor definitively crosses the streams and sets his soundtrack work and his Nine Inch Nails work on a direct collision course (not that they were ever *that* separate), and then pulls these gems from the wreckage. Back in the late 1980s or early 1990s you'd have never expected to hear a bit of jazzy saxophone on a NIN record, but Trent's old enough and self-confident enough to do exactly what he wants and not fuss too much about pandering to people's expectations.

Trent, soundtrack collaborator and creative BFF Atticus Ross, and their gang don their leather jackets, get on their motorcycles, and go raiding in the territories of dark ambient, art rock, and dark jazz acts like Bohren & der Club of Gore, David Lynch, and Blackjazz-era Shining, coming away with a range of musical ideas which they then integrate into their own territory. It's a release which leaves me with the impression that Reznor's creative reserves are far from empty.