How To Destroy Angels
Trent Reznor is inexorably tied to Nine Inch Nails, largely because he was the founding member, creative force and the only one to go the distance. So when Reznor announced his new project, How To Destroy Angels, he felt compelled to add that NIN still had a future. "NIN is not dead and I am about to work on some material that I believe will be quite different than previous NIN very soon," he assured fans.
How To Destroy Angels, who took their name from a Coil song/EP (Reznor got the OK from Coil's Peter Christopherson) had Reznor, Mariqueen Maandig and Atticus Ross.
Aside from being Reznor's wife (since '09) Maandig was an L.A. based singer who fronted West Indian Girl. Ross produced and programmed four NIN albums: "With Teeth, "Year Zero," "Ghosts I-IV" and "The Slip." He also worked with Zach de la Rocha (Rage Against The Machine) and Jane's Addiction.
Plans often change on the fly - and for How To Destroy Angels the initial idea was to work on the sound and songs through '10 with an album coming the following year. But Reznor reported that the band "liked the early results and decided to share them."
How To Destroy Angels' first single, "A Drowning," was released as a digital single in May, '10. The track was mixed by longtime NIN collaborator, Alan Moulder ("The Fragile" and "With Teeth").
Following the free download of the group's self-titled EP, Reznor and Ross signed on to record the score for the David Fincher-directed Facebook film The Social Network. "I've always loved David's work but quite honestly I wondered what would draw him to tell that story," Reznor wrote on his website. "When I actually read the script and realized what he was up to, I said goodbye to that free time I had planned."
Reznor produced the soundtracks for Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers and David Lynch's Lost Highway. However, The Social Network was the first time Reznor was responsible for a film's complete score.
"How To Destroy Angels" is techno/industrial lite. Maandig has seductive voice and when there's energy and she has something to work with the results are pretty good. "Fur-Lined" and "Drowning" are the keepers from this debut set.
A full-length album is expected in early '11. "I would expect the next release to sound a bit more focused as we discover more about our combined chemistry," said Reznor.