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Reznor nails it with classy DVD

By Jason Nahrung for couriermail.com.au on March 21, 2007

THOSE eagerly awaiting the arrival the new Nine Inch Nails album next month can while away the time with a concert DVD.

It shouldn't surprise that a band, or rather an artist, being Trent Reznor, who pioneered the melding of electronica and industrial music has quality production. The surround sound is superb and the footage crystal clear as 24 tracks (plus extras from rehearsal) from the 2006 North American tour are presented.

When first we saw NIN, at the Big Day Out, Reznor was still a thin, pale, angry man who exorcised, or perhaps exercised, his demons on stage in a truly cathartic performance that swept the audience along with him.

The With Teeth tour found him chunky and gym-toned, brandishing a guitar like he'd stepped out of a Bruce Springsteen clip. The concert was slick, at times too slick, but invigorating nonetheless.

With a minimalist stage and an unobtrusive band, Reznor does the business here, ripping through With Teeth's tunes of loneliness and disenfranchisement with machine-like precision and a touch more passion than witnessed on the Brisbane stage.

Nowhere is that more evident than when he performs one of his most powerful songs, Hurt, with just keyboards. On the flipside, the metal anguish hits a highpoint with another of his signature tunes, Closer.

Strangely, the passion seems particularly evident on the rehearsals footage, where Reznor still sports his one-time trademark fringe.

There is also a marked lack of close-ups during the concert footage, the cameras seemingly more concerned with the grandeur of the light show.

With extras including clips for The Hand that Feeds and Only and a photogallery, the DVD makes more than a mouthful, but is perhaps a little blander than one might have expected from an artist of Reznor's calibre.

Transcribed by Lt. Randazzo

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