Nine Inch Nails

NINE INCH NAILS
With Teeth
(Nothing/Interscope)

Nine Inch Nails' second and most successful record, The Downward Spiral, arrived in record stores one month before Kurt Cobain killed himself, a bleak opus brimming with malice and misery and enough pig references to tip off high-school juniors who had just finished reading Lord of the Flies that Satan was somehow involved. But while Spiral provided easy-bake catharsis for depressed theater students, it was also drive-time music for the weekend dominatrix, people who thought handcuffs were fun but were also into Friends. That first group was mostly responsible for the million units sold of overblown follow-up The Fragile, and it was the latter group's absence that made that number a commercial disappointment. And so Trent slithered off to sober up and, to borrow a phrase from Bono, "dream it all up again."

That dream is With Teeth, a record that's half as long as The Fragile but just as plodding and mummified. The Bono reference is not accidental, because Reznor, for all intents and purposes, is his photo negative; where Bono sings bluntly about big, vague ideas like love and faith and hope, Trent sings bluntly about pain and hate and rage. The difference is that you can only pull off one of these noun sets after you hit age 35, and—hint, hint—it ain't the one Trent's working with. In the past he compensated for this lyrical artlessness with a crafty sonic breadth. The critical shorthand for Spiral may be "paean to rage," but that record's best moments are actually the quiet ones: the jazzbo bass thunk of "Piggy," the Vince Guaraldi breakdown on the chorus of "March of the Pigs," "Closer"'s Atari porno aesthetic. With Teeth is all pain-by-numbers with no topography or relief—just one angry distorted chord after another.

Volume just boxes Reznor in. Who knew a fondness for light bondage could get you tangled in a Gordian knot? This creatined misery plays just fine in the live setting, as the group proved during two jaw-dropping and frighteningly kinetic shows at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom a few months back. But when you're sitting alone with them in your car or on the subway or in your apartment—well, it's a problem. A braver man might have realized this and decided to rebuild from the foundation, but Reznor just clings more desperately to formula, keeping his few ballads shapeless and pillaging Broken for the rest. It's no wonder: To embrace change means to risk failure, and in these shaky days, one more Fragile gets you crickets in the concert hall and a three-album deal with Sanctuary. (Here's Al Jourgensen to tell you all about it.) In the end, Trent's biggest problem ends up being exactly what he always said it was: He just wants to be loved. J. EDWARD KEYES

Nine Inch Nails play KeyArena with Queens of the Stone Age and Autolux at 7:30 p.m. Fri, Sept. 23. $35–$45 adv.

WOLF PARADE
Apologies to the Queen Mary
(Sub Pop)

A copy of Michael Lewis' Moneyball must rest on every desk in the Sub Pop offices, where roster reshuffling, free-agent signings, and minor-league call-ups have transformed the label into the Oakland A's of indie rock. There's a bit of Liar's Poker at play here, too: The postmillennial Sub Pop bands are a self-reflexive lot, ready to help you identify their influences by tipping their hands early on and eager to dispense with that nonsense as quickly as possible. There's no surprise in discovering that Wolf Parade's "You Are a Runner and I Am My Father's Son" sounds more like Modest Mouse than the Kidz Bop version of "Float On"—the song's producer, Isaac Brock, never met a record he couldn't turn into Interstate 8. The whiff of Pacific Northwest nostalgia more or less ends there, which is great because we wouldn't want anything else to confuse anyone eager to crown Wolf Parade the next Arcade Fire. "Dear Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts" owes much more to Bowie-in-Berlin than to any of Wolf Parade's Montreal peers. And the echo chamber vocals on "I'll Believe in Anything" would be enough to bar the group from attending Win Butler's fancy-dress tea parties. Diehards may favor some of the ramshackle treatments contained on a series of earlier EPs, though this record offers a wonderful study in contrasts. Apologies to the Queen Mary boasts some of the best hooks and grungiest production to be kissed with the Sub Pop seal of approval. This time around, Montreal is the new Dirty South. NICK GREEN

Wolf Parade play the Paramount Theatre with the Arcade Fire and Belle Orchestra at 8 p.m. Wed., Sept. 21. $22.50. They also headline Crocodile Cafe with the Vells and Dante Decaro at 9 p.m. Thurs., Sept. 22. $10.

BRAD PAISLEY
Time Well Wasted
(Arista Nashville)

Brad Paisley sidles so casually up to his material, you could easily mistake his subtlety for anonymity. His voice is ideal for neither the bedroom nor the barroom, and on "Out in the Parking Lot," duet partner Alan Jackson—the very definition of the unprepossessing country star—sounds uncharacteristically resonant by comparison. But Paisley's reserve is a hidden strength, and his plainspoken folksiness allows him to get away with humor or sentimentality that less canny singers would reduce to cheap gags or unbearable schlock. His current hit, "Alcohol," may soon become a sing-along annoyance around closing time, but his performance is a syllable-by-syllable case study in how to invest a lyric with wisdom. Whether in homiletic or romantic mode, Paisley relentlessly humanizes the clichés found on coffee mugs, in comic strips, and throughout family sitcoms. When he suggests decorating tips on "You Need a Man Around Here" ("I ain't been in a room this clean since they took my appendix out") or eulogizes the unfortunate roses his ex trashes on "Flowers" ("How many flowers have to die/Before you give this love another try"), he captures the particular dynamics of flirtation and seduction. And as Paleolithic as "Waiting on a Woman" (about how long it takes the ladies to get ready) or "The World" ("To the world, you may be just another girl/But to me, you are the world") might read, Paisley has a definite bead on how the patronizing can become endearing. KEITH HARRIS