People twitched when an ill-in-health, drug-addled Trent Reznor came up with “The Fragile”. Five years on from one of the most influential albums of the last ten years or so: two-discs and just over half of them had lyrics. Bold, and for some too much. For others, it was just as valid as any other of his work. However, it was obvious Trent had to clean up his act or die, so thank fuck he did just that and wrote about it.

'With Teeth' is both the most predictable and un-predictable Nine Inch Nails album yet. It is essentially 13 songs. That’s 13 straight-up songs with no instrumentals to fill gaps, all with a certain flow only Trent has really been able to achieve. Never would have we guessed Trent would create something like that. However, in these songs, it sounds like a ‘greatest hits’ of all-original NIN original songs. All the craftsmanship and music we’ve come to expect is here, but this time, stripped bare with nothing else to distort it, and essentially brilliant.

You only have to get dropped in straight away to understand why Trent is still an essential part of music. The opener, 'All the Love in the World', is fantastic, starting off with a very simple breakbeat/vocal intro, and just building, like a fairly standard industrial song, until suddenly the piano kicks in, and it turns into such a funky song and simply enjoyable. There’s a far funkier edge to this album, yes: all the moody and heavy songs Trent has come up with before remain, but now some far more upbeat songs are heard, and this shows his sometimes hidden musical progression. 'The Hand That Feeds' just sounds fucking fantastic as a part of this album, just like 'Closer' a decade. The production is brilliant, let alone the fact that Trent has finally opened up, broke the barriers and begun to sing about politics. Another good example would be 'Only', with a certain, dry British humour to the lyrics, and an obvious David Bowie influence, it is a song to treasure.

This, of course, isn’t to say that Trent has lost touch with his beautifully fragile side. Take 'Beside you in Time', a minimalistic, skipping beat with Trent’s vocals singing beautifully over it: heartbreaking, and reminiscent of ‘Hurt’. Then, however, it turns into 'Right Where It Belongs', a simple piano, guitar fuzz, vocals track which by the end could have you in tears.

There is only one word for it: flawless. No, it’s not The Downward Spiral, but that can only be good. If he didn’t want to progress then he wouldn’t have copied an already successful formula, and it becomes clear just why he takes such long breaks between albums: it’s simply so he can stay fresh and carry on making brilliant albums for as long as possible, particularly considering what has happened between this album and “The Fragile”. Good on him for doing it the way he did.

I could write about this for a long time yet, but I will end by saying that this is what a real rock album should be about. While “The Downward Spiral” was more about telling a transgressive story, this is about capturing pure emotions and turning them into songs. A rare and underrated talent, and one no one else right now can do it as well as he can.

Adam Turner-Heffer