As Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails are about to release Year Zero let’s look back at the band’s year one where, with their groundbreaking album The Downward Spiral, they nearly single-handedly manufactured the sound that would later become more broadly classified as the musical genre “Industrial”.

In 1994 the music scene was becoming void-like, dominated by bands that were mostly hangovers from the metal heyday of the 1980’s and by a new wave of so-called “grunge” groups which had little more in common than geography. Now insert a musician with some serious anger issues and a sound with definite shock appeal; say hello to Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails.

NIN emerged out of this musical void with a concept album, based upon not only condemnations of a hypocritical society but the tale of a single man’s descent into decadence and decay; The Downward Spiral. Frontman Trent Reznor laid the foundation for this album in 1989 with the release of Pretty Hate Machine which features the riff-driven, danceable hit, “Head Like a Hole.”

But unlike earlier NIN efforts and those of 80’s techno predecessors such as Depeche Mode, The Downward Spiral is not a hodge-podge of electronica beats, keyboard effects, and monotone vocals with a mere smattering of guitar. Instead Reznor has used a wall of sound approach featuring blazing guitar riffs, razor-sharp vocals, obscure sampling, and industrial back beats so hard they sound like a factory press smashing solid steel.

The initial impressions created by this approach range from simply startling to utterly overpowering with the common thread being that the album is completely captivating from the get-go. Iconoclastically named tracks such as “Heresy,” “Ruiner” and the surprising MTV anthem, “Closer” are early standouts on the album each featuring a different aspect of Reznor’s edgy approach. “Heresy” touts Reznor’s barbed lyrics with a eye opener of a chorus snarling, “Your God is dead…and no one cares.” “Ruiner” features unique sounds samples that slowly coalesce into a driving chorus, and “Closer” contains some not so oblique references to imitating animalistic sexuality. “Big Man with a Gun” is a 90 second outburst of savagery that somehow smoothly transitions into “A Warm Place,” an instrumental track that represents a moment of peace amidst these sonic assaults. The album concludes with the introspective piece, “Hurt” which was covered nearly a decade later by the late Johnny Cash.

Reznor himself sums up the long, strange trip along The Downward Spiral when he growls on the opening track, “I take you where you want to go, I give you all you need to know, I break you down, I yield you up….Mr. Self Destruct.”