Metal Machine Music: Nine Inch Nails And The Industrial Uprising

Metal Machine Music is a frustrating film that's unable to commit to one subject.

The title and back cover suggest a linkage between the Lou Reed album of the same name and the evolution and popularization of industrial music through the ascent of Nine Inch Nails. But Reed's noise-rock opus isn't even mentioned, and the industrial timeline only runs a scant half-hour of the film's 136 minutes.

The rest is one part Trent Reznor biography, one part critical examination of the NIN oeuvre — and all parts unauthorized by Reznor. The filmmakers are therefore forced to get creative with their interview subjects. They managed to score a sit-down with Genesis P-Orridge, frontperson of industrial godfathers Throbbing Gristle, to talk about the history of the genre.

But everyone else — mostly members of the heavy metal/hard rock media — track the shift from German electronic experimentalists Einstürzende Neubauten to rust-belt rockers Ministry from the outside looking in. Ex-NIN members Chris Vrenna and Richard Patrick are included in a retrospective of the band's career and offer a glimpse inside the group's most fruitful period. But since both had left the NIN camp by 1995, everything post-The Downward Spiral is supposition and speculation.