ADD VIOLENCE

As much as I wanted to like this EP, I just can't call it anything but mediocre at best. This was the second in what was supposed to be a series of 3 EPs released after "Hesitation Marks". It starts out well enough with "Less Than" which was also released as a single. This one sounds a lot like the way NIN used to sound, hard and straightforward. This is the kind of song I used to love from NIN, so things seem positive at the beginning. However, this track sounds nothing like the rest of the EP. The next track is "The Lovers" which seems dark, but vocals are mostly spoken and the track, though it shows some promise, never really goes anywhere. The music is sounding more like electro-industrial without much of an edge. The 3rd and 4th tracks have even less substance. Sure, it's great that NIN was experimenting with different sounds, and they did that quite well with the "Ghosts" CD, but this time it falls flat.

The 5th track is a strange one. "The Background World" starts out really well, and you actually have an 11 minute track here. The first 4 minutes of this track is a definite 5-star song, but there is a sudden change as a looped sequence starts to repeat itself. This goes on for the rest of the track, but listening closely, you start to hear background noise come in. The noise and fuzz slowly get louder over the next 7 minutes as the loop continues, until it completely takes over the loop sequence. So, what was the background becomes the foreground and vice versa. By the time the track expires (that's what it does, simply expires) the noise sounds more like an industrial drone. There is nothing wrong with drones, but the loop repeated ad naseum and the continual noise get very annoying.

This seems like a failed attempt at finding a new sound. I give NIN props for trying, but I don't feel the same passion for the music (except for the first track and the first part of the last track). Maybe the last EP will be better. It is now considered an LP which will be released later in June 2018. It will only be around 30 minutes and Trent wanted to change the designation to LP because he felt that EPs get lost in all the singles that get released, which he probably has a good point. The good news is the plan is to still only charge the price of an EP. Anyway, this EP is not worth looking for unless you are a collector or fan.

The second part of a triptych that began with Not The Actual Events and concluded with Bad Witch, Add Violence slams itself bodily against two different musical extremes of Nine Inch Nails - slickly delivered electro-industrial with enough hooks and instant catchiness to verge on industrial pop on the one hand, loud, aggressive industrial rock confrontation on the other.

The Background World closes off with an increasingly harsh and confrontational repetition of its closing movements, which rather strikes me (considering the song title) as Trent Reznor slightly rebelling against his newfound reputation as a great soundtrack dude; he's insisting here that his music isn't something to just fade into the background but has a real, vibrant purpose to it which deserves to be in the foreground too, and seems to intend the outro to the track as a means of shaking the listener out of whatever they are doing with Add Violence in the background and making them pay attention to it.

Joke's on him, though - these rather light compositions are, aside from that, perfect background music for electro- industrial fans. Sorry, Trent.

This is a pretty good EP from NIN. NIN then from now is very interesting. Then they were a very industrial, heavy hitting band that did not mess around, now they still are just more experimental, and with that I respect Trent Reznor a lot. He makes music he wants too and if he is going down the Experimental rabbit hole with his rock music, than sure, why not. I liked all the tracks on this EP, I thought Less Than was a cool synthy and aggressive starter for this album and I loved the experimental beeps and hoops of The Lovers and I thought the piano of This Isn't The Place was very lovely even in the wake of some pretty creepy sounds, and I think Not Anymore is a very interesting but pretty loud and bassy tracks. However this EP comes to ahead with the Star shining track, The Background World. At first it's like any other track on the EP, beeps and boops, Trent singing his heart out, your usual, but then afterwards, this looping bass synth riff and drums start playing, and more and more these basses get even louder and bassier until they are only really loud static noise, like this song became an entire Drone track that loops infinitely, until it stops. All in all a very interesting EP from the band, and definitely one I might revisit again soon. Very nice.