How To Destroy Angels [EP]

Do not pay for this as a download, How to Destroy Angels are giving this ep away in mp3 format on their official site !!

Trent Reznor's side project How To Destroy Angels--formed with Year Zero/Ghosts henchman Atticus Ross, with Reznor's wife, the impossibly-named Mariqueen Maandig, as vocalist--has released its first EP today. It's a 6-track self-titled affair, lasting a little under 35 minutes, & it's tempting to start drawing comparisons with Nine Inch Nails, rather than face the music on its own terms. But, having said that, i wonder how possible it is to distance oneself from NIN, & not merely through Reznor's & Ross' involvement. While Reznor's voice is arguably the sine qua non in the multi-faceted NIN project, there's now a sizeable body of NIN material that is instrumental (most notably Ghosts, of course, as well as numerous other tracks, especially on Still), so there's something of an established 'non-Reznor' NIN soundworld. To some extent, first impressions would seem to declare that How To Destroy Angels' first EP is a cluster of tracks directly from that soundworld, with Mariqueen Maandig simply placed on top (& the style & form of the lyrics is decidedly NIN-like). This isn't meant as any disrespect to Maandig, who sounds entirely right in this context, although that might have something to do with the fact that she's not, yet, taken her voice into territory more demanding than chesty whisperings & husky half-utterances. To be blunt, she seems in every way borne aloft on the textures created for her by Ross & Reznor; & while it may be an exhilarating magic carpet ride for her, it's not quite so elevating an experience for us.

The closest she comes to something dramatic is in the opening track "The Space in Between", which is also the best track on the EP. The chorus briefly allows her to show us that she can in fact sing, given half a chance, although even here, she's massively enveloped in the deeply ominous, intensifying music around her. While this song bodes well for the future, the rest i'm not so sure about. "Parasite" takes a more anæmic approach (sounding like an outtake from With Teeth), although it introduces a rather refreshing harshness later on, while "Fur Lined" opts initially for retro stylings, filtering the hell out of Maandig's vocals, rendering her like one of the Borrowers emanating from a broken transistor radio. Her voice is way too low in the mix, the analogue synths buzzkilling each & every one of her attempts to take the melody into higher & more interesting areas. i was embarrassed to find myself thinking of (of all things) Justin Timberlake's "Sexyback" while listening to "BBB"; the letters refer to the "big black boots" of the lyrics, but beyond this i have no idea what to make of this weird little track--what is it trying to do or be? i rather like "The Believers", as it has a nice contrast between Maandig's smooth, slow-moving vocals & the incessantly busy, nervous constructions that surround her. For a change, she's in control (just), & the song is all the better for it. & finally, "A Drowning", a lovely song but one that would benefit greatly from the melody being allowed to grow in stature as it progresses; the lyrics almost demand it: "I'm drowning here/please anyone/I don't think I can save myself"--does it make any sense, & is she really content, simply to murmur lines like these? It's as though the group feels that any urgency, any rough edges at all, need to be the occupation of the (for want of a better term) 'accompanying' music & not the vocals, ultimately relegating Maandig to a role that's, by contrast, too polite for its own good.

i was keen not even to mention Nine Inch Nails in this review, but the music has made that impossible; this first EP fails to demonstrate any significant attempt to craft a music that either charts a path different from that of NIN, or that gives Mariqueen Maandig a worthwhile contribution to the enterprise. Trent Reznor could just as easily have delivered all these lyrics himself, & the result wouldn't have been that different from what we have (in some cases, it may even have been better). If How To Destroy Angels is going to amount to anything (& for me, there's no guarantee of that, based on this EP), it needs some new ideas, ones that are entirely its own. "The Space in Between" goes some way to prove that that's possible.

Once people get past the fact that Trent Reznor has released an album with his wife Mariqueen Maandig Reznor and that they might have to wait a bit longer for the next Nine Inch Nails record and that after spending pretty much the last 4 years touring and releasing records at a record rate, they might actually like this. I know some people who would prefer Trent to have no life and think he's embarrassing himself with this record, i would have to totally disagree. A lot of people have slated this partnership(of cours e they do it from the comfort of hiding behind a computer screen) now if it was rubbish fair enough but this ep is far from that.

How To Destroy Angels(named after a single by the band Coil) are made up of Trent Reznor(nine inch nails), Mariqueen Maandig Reznor(ex West Indian Girl) and Atticus Ross(producer for nine inch nails, korn, saul williams) and with this first self titled release they have given us 6 songs full of beats, fuzzy guitars and vocals provided by Mrs Reznor, Trent himself can be heard singing in the background on Parasite and BBB(big black boots). The ep opens with The Space In Between which sounds like The Sneaker Pimps with its big beats, we then move on to the aforementioned Parasite which has a nin trademark distorted fuzzy guitar, and has Trent tucked in on background vocals, the combination works well. Third track Fur Lined has a beat that sounds like it was borrowed from the nin track Only(found on the with teeth album) then its onto BBB which is more of a spoken word duet by Mr & Mrs Reznor as we are told to listen to the sound of Mariqueen's Big Black Boot's, Fifth track The Believers has Mariqueen doing a whisper style vocal over some big beats and distorted guitars, which leaves us with the final track A Drowning, this track is over 7 minutes long and is probably too long and doesn't really go anywhere even if it does contain a hint of the sound Reznor used so well on his masterpiece album The Fragile.

This is probably only the beginning for HTDA and they are probably only testing the water, but after hearing this ep it wets the appetite for a full length studio album.