Nine Inch Nails and Boys Noize – ‘Nine Inch Noize’ album review: A slice of Coachella merch and little more
Following the rave reviews from their Coachella performance, Nine Inch Nails and Boys Noize deliver as promised their joint LP effort, a record that mines the Trent Reznor back-catalogue and reimagines it for the EDM generation.
The Skinny: It might come as a surprise to long-time Reznor fans just how committed to the double-up project the Nine Inch Nails captain really was. Some remix work offered to the German-Iraqi DJ and producer Alex Ridha for Reznor’s acclaimed Hollywood scores saw the former’s Boys Noize moniker perform routine set chunks of Nine Inch Nails’ Peel It Back Tour, transforming electro-aggro cuts like ‘Vessel’ and ‘Came Back Haunted’ into digital big stage thumpers.
So into it, Reznor and fellow Nine Inch Nail Atticus Ross sought to expand the Nine Inch Noize concept for a bespoke show and offer an eponymous album. Acting as a quasi-remix release and live document, Nine Inch Noize comes smattered with live audience coating and a tracklist that boasts no new material, everything’s Nine Inch Nails save the Soft Cell cover, which was originally featured on the Closer to God maxi-single, and ‘Parasite’ from Reznor’s How to Destroy Angels side-project.
It’s hard to approach Nine Inch Noize as anything other than a memento of the Coachella show, flogged along with T-shirts and merch on the vendor’s table near the Sahara stage they played. The tracklist matches the setlist in its entirety, save for an ‘Intro’ of feverish crowd anticipation as the typical tundra of crunchy electronics set the mood, but the album isn’t a statement that stands on its own two legs.
Naturally, much of the material is lifted from Nine Inch Nails’ last 20 years’ output, numbers like ‘Me, I’m Not’ and ‘Copy of A’ imbued by the crisper electronic front better suited to Boys Noize’s blustering digital prowess. They work the best, albeit pulled into a sonic space of dance rave that feels alien to the industrial art-rock underpinnings of Nine Inch Nails, even in their later, lighter incarnations.
It’s the vintage material that sogs limply in Boys Noize’s filter. What was once furiously abrasive and teeming with synthetic slither on ‘Heresy’ now trundles along like a Pendulum dance-rock number that peaks and troughs with an EDM festival template. ‘Closer’s better, lifting its eerie needle jabs and coarse windscapes for the sordid intro, but the juddering and hiccuping beats add little; the power of the piece is carried by the sonic elements already potently alive on its original and only version.
Nine Inch Nails have form on the remix EP, most releases enjoying a companion revisit release ever since 1992’s Broken, and Nine Inch Noize continues that storied tradition. Yet, while marked with a Halo index and ostensibly standing as a significant core album, Nine Inch Noize offers nothing that the former Reznor conjurings it’s rebirthing didn’t perfect all those years ago.
Standout Track: ‘The Warning (Nine Inch Noize Version)’
The Verdict: While sincerely offering an insight into the pair’s electric one-off set, Nine Inch Noize becomes crushed by the stature of the former material it’s grappling with, and looks destined to become lost in the ether of Nine Inch Nails remix albums rather than standing as a captivating experiment in its own right.
Release Date: April 17th, 2026 | Producer: Boys Noize, Trent Reznor, and Atticus Ross | Label: The Null Corporation and Boysnoize Records
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