Trent Reznor Closes The Fragility Period & Begins A New Path for NIN
Written: Mar 23 '02 (Updated May 03 '09)
Product Rating:
Pros: Performances, Intensity, Deconstructed Tracks, Reznor's Vocals, & New Material
Cons: Overdubs on Live Stuff & Missing Live Songs.
The Bottom Line: The Deluxe Version of And All That Could Have Been is an essential for NIN fans that includes the very brilliant Still album. (4.5 out of 5).
thevoid99's Full Review: And All That Could Have Been [PA] [Limited] by Nin...
Throughout the history of rock n’ roll, one of the most constant releases from record companies and bands/artists are the live album. Live albums were released to fans that not only wanted to hear their favorite artists live in concert and also hear their favorite hits. In the 1970s, the live album became a lucrative marketing tool when albums like Kiss’ Alive, Peter Frampton’s Frampton Comes Alive, Neil Young’s Live Rust, and yes, Neil Diamond’s Hot August Night became big sellers and another way to cash in for record companies. Since then, live albums have become more a marketing tool rather than an album where a fan can experience the feeling of a live concert. Sure, there were bad live albums like Styx’s 1984 live album that featured the awful Kilroy Was Here album and yes, my beloved David Bowie made a bad live album in 1974, David Live that featured bad studio overdubs and mixing that was more studio rather than a real live album that was later disowned by Bowie and producer Tony Visconti.
In the 1990s, the live albums were still around but they weren’t many that really captured the experience of a live concert aside from the MTV Unplugged albums from Nirvana, Eric Clapton, Tony Bennett, and Paul McCartney. Then in the mid-90s shortly after the death of Grateful Dead leader Jerry Garcia, many fans of the Dead started to collect a series of live albums from the band’s 30-year career which were known simply as Dick’s Pick and those albums became very popular among fans. In 2001, 90s alt-rockers Pearl Jam released a total of 73 live albums chronicling their tour in Europe and the U.S. in 2000 that became popular among Pearl Jam’s fans even though many of the live albums didn’t really contain any hits. The success of those live albums from Pearl Jam was then followed by another series of live albums from the jam-rock band Phish who also gained similar success with the release of their live recordings. In 2002, another alternative rock band has finally joined the world of live albums but unlike other bands, they take the live album to another level. That band is none other than Nine Inch Nails.
Although Nine Inch Nails was considered a studio creation masterminded by its leader Trent Reznor, NIN gained their popularity by playing live and by the end of the 90s was hailed as one of the greatest live attractions in history. When Trent Reznor decided to put NIN from a studio creation to a live band upon the release of his 1989 debut album Pretty Hate Machine, he knew that he needed musicians to give the album a more live feel and not make it sound like a studio band. He saw those problems when he saw the industrial-electronic group Nitzer Ebb live where they kicked and stomped on pads to make their sounds and the approach was stupid. Reznor decided to get a guitar player, a keyboardist, and a drummer for the live band while having a tape machine playing the bass or other parts.
Reznor brought in his longtime friend and original NIN drummer Chris Vrenna along with guitarist/future Filter leader Richard Patrick, and Lee Mars on keyboards. By late 1989 through early 1990, NIN opened up for bands and artists like former Bauhaus singer Peter Murphy and noise-rockers the Jesus & Mary Chain. Nine Inch Nails’ chaotic industrial sound help won over the audience as they blew away the bands they opened for. By late 1990, NIN was becoming an underground live attraction where fans not only got hear their harsh sound but also a bit of a theatrical approach to Reznor’s performance including jumping on a band member when he screws up a chord or something or smashing guitars, microphone stands, and keyboards during the show.
In 1991, NIN was asked to be part of the inaugural Lollapalooza tour with headliners Jane’s Addiction and Siouxsie & The Banshees. NIN were the first band to play the festival and ended up stealing the show most of the time and helped their 1989 debut album “Pretty Hate Machine” to sell a million copies in its two years of release. There was also a point on the Lollapalooza tour where the NIN t-shirts outsold all the t-shirts from headliners Jane’s Addiction. Their appearance in Lollapalooza helped NIN gain an opening slot for a brief European tour with Guns N’ Roses and Skid Row. That tour was disastrous since NIN didn’t fit in with the hard rock bands and fans ended up throwing things at NIN.
By 1994, NIN returned to the road with a new album The Downward Spiral and a new live lineup that consisted of longtime drummer Chris Vrenna, the band’s 1991 keyboardist James Wooley, and two new members to live band, guitarist/keyboardist Robin Finck and bassist/guitarist/keyboardist Danny Lohner. The tour for The Downward Spiral helped NIN gain more attention as a live band and by the summer of 1994 when they played the 25th Anniversary edition of Woodstock, NIN stole the show by playing covered in mud and getting more than 250,000 fans go wild as they brought their art-rock industrial sound to the masses.
The appearance in Woodstock 94 helped give NIN attention into the mainstream and by late 1994 was one of the biggest live draws in concert attendance. When NIN returned on the road in early 1995 with new keyboardist Charlie Clouser replacing James Wooley, the music press were starting to compare their live shows to the theatrics of bands like Kiss, Alice Cooper, and Pink Floyd including the climatic chaos of the Who. In late 1995, NIN was asked to open for rock legend David Bowie. The tour not only gave NIN some respect from Bowie but also gave the rock legend some much-needed exposure for his 1995 release Outside that helped him gain back the critical acclaim he had in the 1970s.
By late 1999 when NIN released their highly anticipated double album The Fragile, they were hit by the new changes of the music scene as teen-pop and rap-metal ruled the charts and made bands like NIN look more obscure. Although Reznor and his NIN cohorts including Finck, Lohner, Clouser, and new NIN drummer Jerome Dillon knew about the new trends, they forged ahead on their Fragility world tour, which became huge sellers in Europe, Japan, and Australia, in late 1999/early 2000. When NIN went for a U.S. tour in the spring of 2000, the band realized their fans were still there even though The Fragile wasn’t a huge seller. The U.S. tour NIN did was a success among fans and critics who called NIN one of the best live acts of all-time. In 2001, NIN worked on their very first live album and a DVD project that chronicled their U.S. tour. In January of 2002, NIN released the live album and DVD that was named after a line from the song The Great Below titled And All That Could Have Been.
The live album of And All That Could Have Been was released in two versions. One was a single-disc live album of sixteen tracks from the band’s 2000 U.S. tour and the other was a deluxe version that contained a gray packaging and a bonus disc of deconstructed, stripped down material known as Still. While the live album represents an end to another chapter in the NIN story, Still represents of what might come from NIN in the future or it could just be another experiment from Trent Reznor. In the end, the deluxe version of And All That Could Have Been is a brilliant chronicle of Nine Inch Nails’ past and a possibility in the future of NIN.
The first disc in the deluxe version of And All That Could Have Been is the NIN live album of the same name. The eighteen track album features material from many of the albums NIN have put out in their thirteen year history like their 1989 debut album Pretty Hate Machine, the 1992 EP Broken, 1994’s The Downward Spiral and 1999’s The Fragile. Though the music of NIN has been made mostly by studio equipment, NIN shows its power as a live band in the live album by using live drums, guitars, synthesizers, and theremins to not only give the music a new approach that can be beautiful or chaotic but also give the songs more power on a live format rather than being a studio track. With the live album And All That Could Have Been, NIN shows the world how powerful they can be when they play live.
Usually when an album opens, you hear an intro from the audience screaming for their favorite band and sometime along with someone screaming for the band you’re about to hear. Well with NIN, they don’t do that. Instead, Trent Reznor and his cohorts don’t waste time and just get on with the show and the first thing you hear is Jerome Dillon’s hard-hitting drum tracks that lead into the first song Terrible Lie. The anti-religion song not only features harsh guitar assaults from lead guitarist Robin Finck and multi-instrumentalist Danny Lohner along with synthesizer accompaniment from Charlie Clouser and thunderous rhythms from Dillon who all accompany Reznor’s vocals singing about his issues against religion with angst-ridden lyrics like “Hey God, why are you doing this to me? Am I not living up to what I’m supposed to be? Why am I seething with this animosity? Hey God, I think you owe me a great big f*cking apology” that leads into its powerful chorus of “Terrible lie”. As the song comes to an end, Reznor’s vocals becomes more anguished when he sings, “I want something to believe” as Clouser’s synthesizer background accompanies him.
The next song that also appears in the Pretty Hate Machine album with Terrible Lie and Head Like A Hole is the industrial-dance of Sin that is opened up with Lohner’s pulsating synthesizer rhythms and Clouser’s theremin solo that goes on for a minute until Finck brings in a driving guitar solo along with Dillon’s fast-pulsating drum tracks that make the song become a powerful rock song that then leads to Reznor singing his sinful lyrics as he’s accompanied by Clouser and Lohner’s pulsating synthesizer rhythms and Dillon’s mid-tempo drum beats. During a brief instrumental break of the song that is dominated by Clouser’s eerie theremin performance along with the thunderous assaults of Finck’s guitar and Dillon’s drums, the track is a lot more menacing than the original version.
The next song is the hard-charging, industrial-rocker of March Of The Pigs from The Downward Spiral spurred by Dillon’s frenetic drum tracks along with Lohner and Finck’s abrasive guitar assaults as Reznor sings his fast-paced vocals to his bleak lyrics of violence and self-destruction. The song takes a brief soft turn led by Clouser’s pulsating synthesizer tracks as Reznor sings “All the pigs, all lined up/I give you all that you want/Take the skin and peel it back/Now doesn’t that make you feel better?” which by then, the song returns to its hard-rocking structure and again leads to its soft chorus and then ends with its frenetic rock assault.
The next song is the bass-driven Piggy that is led by Lohner’s melodic bass hooks as Reznor sings his bleak lyrics of “Hey pig, yeah you/Hey pig piggy pig pig pig/All of my fears came true” as he’s also being accompanied by Clouser’s atmospheric synthesizer tracks and Dillon’s slow-tempo drum track and as Reznor goes into the chorus of “Nothing can stop me now/I don’t care anymore/Nothing can stop me now/I just don’t care” as Dillon’s drum tempo picks up the pace a bit. During the second verse, Finck joins in for a keyboard accompaniment as Reznor then sings the chorus this time with the audience joining in as Finck brings in a droning guitar in the end as Reznor closes the song with a melancholy piano solo that would lead to the next track, The Frail.
Reznor performs the famed instrumental piece from The Fragile as he plays the melancholy-piano piece on a keyboard that not only slows down the energy of the live show but also serves as an introduction to the next song, The Wretched. The art-rock classic from The Fragile opens up with a piano riff from Clouser who also brings in a rhythmic synthesizer tracks as Dillon brings in pulsating drum tracks as they accompany Reznor’s dark lyrics about pain where he is then accompanied by droning guitars from Lohner and Finck comes in to follow Reznor through its powerful chorus of “Now, you know/This is what it feels like” where it becomes a powerful rock track even during the instrumental breaks when Finck brings in a brilliant and noisy guitar solo along with a brief synthesizer solo from Clouser.
The next song Gave Up from the Broken EP picks up the energetic pace of the album with its abrasive and harsh approach as Reznor sings his angst-ridden lyrics of “Perfect little dream, the kind that hurts the most/Forgot how it feels, well almost/No one to blame, always the same/Open my eyes, wake up in flames” as he’s accompanied by Dillon’s frenetic drums and Clouser’s pulsating synthesizer hooks where it’s then followed by a powerful chorus of “It took you to make me realize” as Reznor, Lohner, and Finck bring in a full-throttle guitar assault as Dillon and Clouser’s instruments become faster and more violent as the song shows Reznor’s anger and goes on even when Reznor sings “I tried but I gave up” where the song goes into a fast, metal-driven track as the band plays more intense as Reznor sings “Throw it away”.
The fast, energy of Gave Up finally slows down to the next track of the album, which is the atmospheric The Great Below. Spurred by Charlie Clouser’s atmospheric synthesizer track, the song is given a more psychedelic feel rather than art-rock structure from The Fragile as Reznor sings the opening lines of “Staring at the sea/Will she come? Is there hope for me/After all is said and done/Anything at any price/All of this for you/All the spoils of a wasted life/All of this for you” where Danny Lohner brings in a melodic keyboard solo to accompany Reznor’s mesmerizing lyrics. Then on the third verse of the song the song’s tempo starts to pick up a bit by Robin Finck’s droning guitar track as Reznor sings psychedelic-like lyrics of oceans and as he sings the final lines of the song “I will take my place/In the great below”, Finck brings in a melodic guitar solo at the end of the track as Reznor sings the line “I can still feel you/Even so far away” as he’s accompanied by Jerome Dillon’s mid-tempo drum pattern.
The next track is the instrumental The Mark Has Been Made that is spurred by Finck’s melodic guitar track, Dillon’s ominous drum rhythm, and Clouser’s symphonic keyboard track that gives the instrumental an ominous feel for about a few minutes until Finck brings in a weird guitar twang that opens up the second half of the instrumental as it’s now driven by Dillon’s powerful drum fills along with Finck and Lohner’s droning guitar assaults with Reznor’s bass accompaniment where he screams a bit toward the end of the song when it becomes a much harder track due to Finck and Lohner’s guitar assault. The next song is the fast-paced brutality of Wish spurred by Dillon’s machine gun-like drum beats and Clouser’s wind-like synthesizer tracks as Reznor sings the opening lyrics of “This is my first day of my last days” as he along with Finck and Lohner bring in a full-throttle metal guitar assault as Reznor sings his angst-ridden lyrics including the chorus of “Wish there was something real, wish there was something true/Wish there was something real, this world full of you” as the song brings in an intensity marred by the band’s brutal and chaotic musicianship.
The next song is the bass-driven Suck (which is now given full songwriting credit not just to Reznor and Pigface’s Martin Atkins but Atkin’s Pigface collaborator Bill Rieflin and Rieflin’s Ministry band mate Paul Barker) that is spurred by Lohner’s melodic bass grooves accompanying Reznor’s bleak lyrics of the world that includes the opening line “There is no god up in the sky, tonight” and when Reznor sings the line “This disease I gave to myself” the song becomes a hard-rocking track spurred by Reznor and Finck’s powerful guitar assaults and Dillon’s thunderous drum fills as Reznor sings the chorus of “How does it feel? Suck, suck, suck” and during the brief instrumental break that features a windy background from Clouser, Reznor sings the line “I feel so dirty, on the inside” repeatedly until the song returns to its hard-rocking structure where Reznor ends the song saying the word “Suck” repeatedly.
Next is the NIN classic Closer that opens up with a heart-beat rhythm by Jerome Dillon who hits electronic pads for the song as Danny Lohner and Charlie Clouser both play the synthesizer parts accompanying Reznor’s sexual-laden lyrics until it’s famous chorus of “I want to f*ck you like an animal/I want to feel you from the inside/I want to f*ck you like an animal/My whole existence is flawed/You get me closer to god” as he’s accompanied by Lohner’s bass groove which is then followed by a synthesizer solo from Clouser which leads to the second verse where Reznor’s is accompanied by an ominous keyboard background from Robin Finck that again leads to its chorus and it’s instrumental coda where Finck switches back to guitar as Reznor takes over on the synthesizer to bring in a solo to end the song.
Next is another NIN classic, Head Like A Hole that is driven by Clouser’s synthesizer track along with Dillon’s up tempo drum tracks that accompanies Trent Reznor’s angst-ridden lyrics of “God money, I’ll do anything for you/God money, just tell me what to do” where it is then followed by its powerful chorus of “Head like a hole/Black as your soul/I’d rather die than give you control/Bow down before the one you serve, you’re going to get what you deserve” as Reznor, Finck, and Lohner bring in a powerful guitar assault along with Dillon’s frenetic drum track where he also brings in a powerful drum solo in the middle of the song as the band brings the song’s intensity to its fullest.
After Head Like A Hole ends, there’s a brief break where people chants for an encore and NIN returns for the encore that opens up with the brooding The Day The World Went Away. The track opens up with droning metal guitar riffs from Reznor and Finck as Lohner accompanies them on the bass as Reznor starts to sing the bleak lyrics of “I’d listen to the words he’d say/But in his voice, I heard decay/The plastic face forced to portray/All the insides left cold and gray/There is a place that still remains/The sweetest price he’ll have to pay/The day the whole world went away” as Finck strums his guitar in the end of Reznor’s vocals. Then Dillon brings soft drum tracks to finish the rest of the song along with a theremin accompaniment from Clouser as the bands sings the “Na Na Nah/Na Na Na, Nah” part to close the song.
Next is the industrial rock, celebrity bashing Starf*ckers, Inc. that is driven by Dillon’s pulsating drum tracks and Reznor’s angry lyrics about celebrity as he then sings its powerful chorus of “Starf*ckers/(repeat 2 times)/Starf*ckers, Inc.” as his along with Finck abrasive guitars and Lohner’s accompanying bass hooks become menacing and during the Carly Simon lyrics of “You’re so vain/You probably think this song is about you, don’t you?” as fans chanted “Don’t you” through Reznor and the song becomes an intense number that makes the fans go wild.
The final track of the live album is the classic ballad Hurt that starts off with Reznor’s painful lyrics of “I hurt myself today/To see if I still feel/I focus on the pain/The only thing that’s real/The needle tears a hole/The old familiar stings/Try to kill it all away/But I remember everything” as he’s accompanied by an acoustic guitar performance from Robin Finck. Finck’s guitar then leads into a brief instrumental as he’s accompanied by Charlie Clouser’s melancholy keyboard track that leads to Reznor singing the second verse of “What have I become? My sweetest friend/Everyone I know/Goes away in the end” where he’s now accompanied by the rhythm section of bassist Danny Lohner and drummer Jerome Dillon who bring in a slow accompaniment as Reznor sings the chorus of “And you could have it all/My empire of dirt/I won’t let you down/I will make you hurt”. As Reznor sings the third verse that then leads to the chorus, the audience is heard singing along with him including the final lines of the song “If I could start again/A million miles away/I would keep myself/I would find a way” as fans cheers and the album ends.
Although the live album for And All That Could Have Been is an excellent live album, like many live records before, it contains some flaws. Where fans of bands sometimes complain that live album doesn’t contain some of their favorite songs, the NIN album is no exception. Some NIN fans were upset over the fact the live album was going to become a one-disc live record rather than a two-disc record, which meant that some NIN favorite wouldn’t make it. Although songs La Mer and Reptile along with the instrumentals for Just Like You Imagined and Complication appear in the DVD of the same name, there were other songs that were played during the tour. For fans who owned several NIN bootlegs (including myself, a proud owner of a couple of live bootlegs), many live bootlegs usually opened up with Terrible Lie. Although the song is a good opener, it was a somewhat predictable for fans when early shows in the U.S. tour opened up with the song Somewhat Damaged along with an intro of the instrumental track Pinion that was mixed with the song The New Flesh that appeared in the vinyl version of The Fragile.
Other songs that were missing that were played during that tour aside from Somewhat Damaged and the songs that didn't appeared in the DVD were Into The Void, The Way Out Is Through, Get Down, Make Love, Even Deeper and of course, Down In It. Reznor removed Down In It because he said the song no longer has any meaning for him in his life and it will no longer be played in concert. As for other songs, they just couldn’t make it since they weren’t recorded or the fact they could’ve avoid releasing a double album that would’ve become another huge commercial failure years after the release of The Fragile which was a double album that became a huge commercial failure selling 800,000 in the U.S. In the end, the live album still carries punch along with the bonus disc in the deluxe version of And All That Could Have Been titled Still.
Still is a nine-track album of stripped-down, deconstructed material from Trent Reznor and his cohorts. As part of the second disc in the deluxe version of And All That Could Have Been, the record is also available separately through iTunes digitally for those who only have the single-disc version of the live album. Still features four old NIN classics stripped down to a just a piano, acoustic instruments, and atmospheric productions along with four new instrumental pieces and a new song titled And All That Could Have Been (two of those new tracks were inspired by the tragedy of September 11, 2001). Though it’s unclear whether it’s a transitional record of what is to come from NIN or it’s just simply another experiment from the band but it’s a very interesting record that shows what Trent Reznor could do without the electronic setting of his music and it also shows his ability as a pianist.
The first track off of the Still record is the classic ballad from Pretty Hate Machine called Something I Can Never Have that is just performed by Reznor on a piano with NIN drummer Jerome Dillon accompanying him on acoustic guitar. The track opens with Reznor playing the melancholy piano riff with Dillon bringing a melodic acoustic guitar track to accompany Reznor’s piano playing as he sings the opening line of “I still recall the taste of my tears/Echoing your voice just like the ringing of my ears/My favorite dreams of you still wash ashore/Scraping through my head ‘till I don’t want to sleep anymore”. Reznor shows his ability as a vocalist where he shows his vulnerability and emotion that is more raw than the original track even when he sings the chorus of “You make this all go away/You make this all go away/I’m down to just one thing/And I’m starting to scare myself/You make this all go away/You make this all go away/I just want something, I just want something I can never have”.
The next track is an instrumental piece titled Adrift And At Peace that features a melodic piano riff from The Fragile track La Mer as Reznor gives the riff a more melancholy mood along with an ambient atmospheric background from NIN engineers Dave “Rave” Ogilvie and Keith Hillebrandt to give the song a soft and beautiful mood that is both mesmerizing and sad at the same time. The next song is The Fragile that starts off with an ominous keyboard riff that opens the track as Reznor sing the opening line of “She shines/In a world full of ugliness/She matters/When everything is meaningless”. When Reznor goes into the chorus of “I won’t let you fall apart”, his soft vocals also give the song a much darker mood from the original as a soft, atmospheric background comes in during the second half of the song as he sings the track. When Reznor goes to the final verse of “It’s something I have to do/I was there, too/Before everything else/I was like you”, Jerome Dillon accompanies him with an ominous drum track along with Hillebrandt and Leo Herrera’s atmospheric background gives the track a climatic ending.
The next song The Becoming opens up with a funky piano riff from Trent Reznor who shows the world his ability as a pianist but also his classical background that was never really heard until now. Reznor’s piano riffs are then followed by Danny Lohner’s acoustic guitar performance and Jerome Dillon’s thumping drum rhythm that sounds like an electronic drum track but it’s really a cymbal on top of the bass drum in order to manipulate as if people are hearing electronic drums. Reznor sings the song that begins with a thunderous bass drum track as he sings, “I beat my machine, it’s a part of me, it’s inside of me/I’m stuck in this dream, it’s changing me, I am becoming”. NIN who are known for being brutal with electronic instruments show they can be brutal when it comes to acoustic instruments when Reznor sings the final line of “I won’t give up, it wants me dead/Godd*mn this noise inside my head” where he gives the piano track a more violent feel as the guitar and drum tracks become more intense as the song shows NIN at its most brutal when they play unplugged.
The next instrumental track Gone, Still is another melancholy piano-based track with a bass accompaniment in the background that becomes louder by its ominous rhythm that goes right through your heart when you hear it along with an ambient-like background that gives the track its sense of mood and elegance. The Day The World Went Away which was recorded during a backstage session in Chicago during the band’s U.S. tour in 2000. The track starts off with an atmospheric keyboard track from Keith Hillebrandt as it follows Reznor’s melodic piano playing as he plays the song accompanied by an acoustic bass track from Danny Lohner and a melodic guitar track from Robin Finck. Reznor then sings the bleak lyrics about the end of the world. As Reznor finishes singing, Finck does a melodic guitar strum with Hillebrandt’s atmospheric keyboard accompanying that then leads into a powerful instrumental coda led by Jerome Dillon’s slow but thunderous drum track as the band goes through the “Na Na Nah/Na Na Na, Nah” part of the song as Reznor plays his melodic piano track.
The next song is a new song titled And All That Could Have Been which is written by Reznor and Danny Lohner is a melodic-driven track that opens up with a chilling atmospheric background that then leads to dreamy-guitar performance from Danny Lohner who accompanies Reznor’s lyrics of “Breeze still carries the sound/Maybe I’ll disappear/Tracks will fade in the snow/You won’t find me here” as Reznor starts to perform a melancholy piano track that is then, accompanied by distorted beats as he sings bleak lyrics of “Ice starting to form/Ending what had begun/I am locked in my head/With what I’ve done”. A thumping drum track and droning guitar comes in as Reznor sings, “Please, take this/And run far away/Far away from me” that leads to an instrumental break of acoustic and electric guitars as Reznor says “And all that could have been” where he sings the lyrics of “If I could only see/In my nothing/You meant everything/Everything to me”.
The next two tracks are the last two instrumental tracks on the album. First is The Persistence Of Loss which is a collaborative track between Reznor and a group of musicians that includes Deniz Ayco-Yaman, Howard Pink, Weston David Probst, John Reeks, and William Shultz. The track opens up with an ominous and chilling piano track from Reznor that goes on for thirty seconds along with a discordant guitar strum along with a brooding cello and violin performance accompanying Reznor’s melancholy piano track along with a symphonic string and atmospheric background that shows Reznor’s ability as a classical musician which is always overlooked due to his love of electronic instruments. The final track on the album is the instrumental Leaving Hope starts off with a soft, ambient background from Reznor’s co-producer of The Fragile Alan Moulder along with engineer team of Keith Hillebrandt and Leo Herrera that is then followed by a chilling piano track that is accompanied by a distorted, atmospheric background track that makes the track chilling as if you’re watching a weird David Lynch movie that includes a mesmerizing symphonic keyboard track and a droning guitar all accompanying Reznor’s melancholy piano performance that just doesn’t have a sense of sadness in the track but also a sense of elegance as Reznor ends the track with its chilling atmospheric background.
The deluxe version of And All That Could Have Been is a must have for hardcore NIN fans who not only want to hear NIN live but also want to hear NIN stripped down to acoustic instruments. Casual fans should get the single disc of the NIN live album unless they’re interested in getting the Still disc but finding the deluxe version of the live album is pretty hard to find nowadays since so many hardcore got that version in the first day (including me). New fans would find the live album a good introduction although the best introduction to NIN would be the studio albums like Pretty Hate Machine and The Downward Spiral. The live album is a great listen for those whom want to rock out while Still is a great record to listen to on a rainy day. The deluxe version of And All That Could Have Been not only closes the Fragility period nicely but also is a preview of what might come from NIN and its leader Trent Reznor.
Live Shows: (NIN/Bauhaus/TV on the Radio-6/7/06 Atlanta, GA Hi-Fi Buys Amphitheater) - (NIN/Deerhunter-8/13/08 Duluth, GA Gwinnett Arena) - (NIN/Jane's Addiction/Street Sweeper Social Club-5/10/09 Atlanta, GA Hi-Fi Buys Amphitheater)
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