With Teeth And Context

I've been pretty harsh on the new Nine Inch Nails single lately, but a funny thing happened recently in the evolution of that opinion.

With Teeth, the full CD on which "The Hand That Feeds" appears, is out in stores and on Rhapsody this week, and so I've been giving it a (figurative) spin. While it's still not that great of a tune, I'm surprised at how much better that one song sounds in the context of the whole record. Whether or not this is some sort of indictment of our current iPod-fueled a la carte music culture is a debate for another day.

I don't have a well-formed opinion of the album just yet. It seems to start a little slow, but pick up steam about halfway through, particularly around the title track. One thing I've noticed is that the drums sound a bit more organic than past NIN albums, which could be better sampling or liberal use of real drums and real drummers.

Aside from that, there's not a whole lot of new ground being broken, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.