How to keep sounding like Trent Reznor

It used to be that Trent Reznor took years between Nine Inch Nails albums to craft them to his exact specifications. That has changed in the last few years with a slew of new discs, of which this self-titled release from How to Destroy Angels is one.

The new band is much more stripped down than NIN, with only four members. Reznor’s wife Mariqueen Maandig replaces him on vocals for most of the EP. At first this seems like an interesting idea, since Reznor’s vocal stylings are so essential to NIN records, but there isn’t much of a change in How to Destroy Angels. Maandig’s vocals are essentially the female version of his normal style, and when Reznor doubles her the similarity is quite obvious.

Although the new EP sounds very much like past NIN efforts, it benefits from a dark groove that really hasn’t existed since “The Downward Spiral.” It’s just too bad there isn’t more to distinguish this release from other Nine Inch Nails recordings.