Ever since Depeche Mode released the 'Black Celebration' album, electronic music was beggining to be taken more seriously, especially of the darker kind, and the more grittier kind, thanks to bands like Ministry who slapped in some crunchy guitars into the mix to create a new genre of music known as Industrial.
However, the man most commonly associated with Industrial is the perverted mastermind of Nine Inch Nails; Trent Reznor.
This album though, isn't an Industral record, or anything near it, atleast in my opinion. Sure, it rocks but only about 3/4 times; in reality it's just dark and heavy synth-pop, not far from what Depeche Mode were doing, but on a more grand scale.
Opener 'Head Like A Hole' is a classic slab of electro-rock, as is 'Terrible Lie' and 'Sin', but songs like 'Something I Can Never Have' and 'Sanctified' are ambient epic pieces; basically the album lies between either being electro-rocky, poppy or ambient ballads, with some ill advised efforts in songs or parts of songs here and there. Lyrically, this is also Trent's most open effort to date, and overall this album has less of a commercial feel than it's follow-up. This is a brilliant album, but if you're looking for a hard Industrial album, this isn't it apart from the singles - so find those instead, but this is still a great record and one of NIN's best (hey, they're all pretty good), and is definetly one that should be in every dedicated NIN fans collection.