Just as grunge's punky pessimism broke through to the mainstream, Trent Reznor, the former frontman of a Loverboy tribute band, took cathartic self-loathing to dark new depths via one-man industrial-rock band Nine Inch Nails' Pretty Hate Machine. Reznor pretty much singlehandedly defined the new cyber-goth aesthetic, and played a major role in influencing everybody from Marilyn Manson to Korn to Orgy.
Fortunately, he also made really good music.
But as angsty youngsters grew up and moved on, Reznor descended into a self-destructive reality every bit as nihilistic as his tunes; by '02, Nine Inch Nails was making the news more often for reports of substance abuse and legal infighting than for its material. Reznor cleaned up and roared back this year, however, with With Teeth, an album that's a little more stripped down and organic but no less unflinching than his back catalog. He's not selling as many records as he used to, but he still stands as an alt-generation icon.
Smart, druggy rock act Queens of the Stone Age might as well be a co-headliner on this jaunt — the group has seen a slight dip in its trendiness quotient since the release of its fourth album, Lullabies to Paralyze, but remains one of the most original and respected acts in its genre. And NIN continues its tradition of taking hot new talent on the road by featuring hip, confrontational Canadian post-punk project Death From Above 1979 as an opener.
Nine Inch Nails, w/Queens of the Stone Age/Death From Above 1979, Saturday, Oct. 22 @ St. Pete Times Forum, St. Petersburg. 7:30 p.m.; $37.75/$46.75.
This article appears in Oct 19-25, 2005.