With Teeth (also known as Halo 19 or [WITH_TEETH]) is the fifth full-length studio album by Nine Inch Nails, released on May 3, 2005. It spawned three singles (The Hand That Feeds, Only and Every Day Is Exactly The Same), four tour legs, and much celebration for Trent Reznor's sobriety.
Track List
CD
(US Version)
- "All The Love In The World" – 5:14
- "You Know What You Are?" – 3:41
- "The Collector" – 3:07
- "The Hand That Feeds" – 3:31
- "Love Is Not Enough" – 3:41
- "Every Day Is Exactly The Same" – 4:54
- "With Teeth" – 5:37
- "Only" – 4:22
- "Getting Smaller" – 3:35
- "Sunspots" – 4:02
- "The Line Begins To Blur" – 3:44
- "Beside You In Time" – 5:24
- "Right Where It Belongs" – 5:04
(European Version Bonus Track 14)
- "Home" - 3:14
(UK Version Bonus Track 15)
- "Right Where It Belongs V2" - 5:04
(Japan Version Bonus Track 16)
- "The Hand That Feeds" (Ruff Mix) - 3:57
12" Vinyl
A1 "All The Love In The World" - 5:15
A2 "You Know What You Are?" - 3:42
A3 "The Collector" - 3:07
A4 "The Hand That Feeds" - 3:32
B1 "Love Is Not Enough" - 3:41
B2 "Every Day Is Exactly The Same" - 4:55
B3 "With Teeth" - 5:38
C1 "Only" - 4:23
C2 "Getting Smaller" - 3:35
C3 "Sunspots" - 4:03
C4 "Home" - 3:12
D1 "The Line Begins To Blur" - 3:44
D2 "Beside You In Time" - 5:25
D3 "Right Where It Belongs" - 5:07
Tour Edition & DualDisc
In the US, a DualDisc version of With Teeth was released. A version referred to as the 'Tour Edition' was released in the UK, with the CD and DVD as separate discs. It came in a jewel case and had the same cover art as the DualDisc.
DualDisc CD side/Tour Edition CD includes:
- With Teeth CD audio
DualDisc DVD side/Tour Edition DVD includes:
- Entire album in 5.1 surround sound
- Entire album in high resolution stereo and 5.1 surround on DVD-Audio players
- Entire album in Dolby Digital Stereo and 5.1 surround on standard DVD players
- Music video: "The Hand That Feeds"
- Image slide show during DVD-Audio playback
- Body Of Work section with selected audio and video clips from NIN’s catalog
Outtakes
The non-album tracks from this era are "Non-Entity" and "Not So Pretty Now." During a chat with fans in The Spiral, Reznor stated that these songs were outtakes from the With Teeth sessions, and studio recordings of them might one day surface. On March 20, 2009, Reznor released the long-awaited studio versions as part of the NINJA 2009 Summer Tour EP via ninja2009.com.
On a PDF poster (containing lyrics and credits) posted to the With Teeth site and later made physically available to members of The Spiral as part of the welcome package, several extra songs were alluded to but not featured on the album. All of these songs contained lyrics in some form, though they were not entirely legible. These songs are:
On May 5, 2005, in the Access section of nin.com, Reznor simply replied with "?" in response to the following fan question: "In the .pdf file for the lyrics to the With Teeth album, there are [sic] appears to be songs listed with lyrics that do not appear on the Dual Disc CD/DVD album. Those songs include "Home," "Message To No One" and "The Life You Didn't Lead". Will these songs be released ever?"
A song with the title "The Warning" is on Year Zero. When the 2019 Definitive Edition vinyl of With Teeth was released, the aforementioned poster was re-created as part of the packaging. Lyrics to "The Warning" were made legible and it was finally revealed that the track from Year Zero has its origins in the track from the With Teeth sessions.
In a pre-release article [1] for With Teeth, a song named "My Dead Friend" was mentioned. Whether this is an earlier name for a song that does appear (such as "Beside You In Time") or simply didn't make the cut, is so far unknown. It is speculated that it may have become "This Isn't The Place". Similarly, there is a possibility that "The Life You Didn't Lead" informed or inspired "The Lovers".
Possible pre-release CDs
In January 2020, two separate CDs (marked as being from late 2004) surfaced that purported to contain songs from With Teeth in various states of completion, as well as outtakes that had not previously been mentioned. There were two different CDs: one with five tracks that were all released on the final album in some form, and a double CD containing all of the album tracks (some finished, some in demo form) and several demoed outtakes on disc two. The previously unknown outtakes were named "Cover It Up", "Good Day", and "The End". "Cover It Up" was also reported to be an early version of "The Idea Of You". The five-track CD was sold by Amoeba Records on eBay, and images of the double CD showed up on imgur. No content from either CD has been shared. Tracks claiming to be from the five-track CD were posted to archive.org the same month as the eBay sale, but were found to be elaborate fakes.
These CDs were brought to the attention of Rob Sheridan, who stated on Twitter that the five-track CD "appears to be one of the ones I made (printing out on a home printer on cut-out CD insert template paper) that we sent out to record industry people and potential collaborators." When asked on Patreon about the "new" outtakes, he stated, "I should probably not comment any further on that one, it's really not my place to talk about unreleased NIN stuff."
Definitive 2019 Edition Vinyl
A vinyl reissue campaign of the NIN catalog was begun in 2017 with three albums, and was continued in 2019 when With Teeth was released as the next installment. The item's description reads:
At long last, the Definitive version of With Teeth, meticulously prepared by Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and NIN art director John Crawford. Remastered in 2019 on 180-gram vinyl, with lots of details attended to that you may never notice but we care about.
This edition of the vinyl comes with a booklet containing photos and an essay about the album, written by David Fricke. It also contains the lyrics, adapted from the old PDF poster.
Instrumental Version
With Teeth Instrumental was made available on June 30th 2015 via Apple Music. It contained instrumentals of every track (except the international track "Home") with "All The Love In The World" also being an alternate version.
It was released along with The Fragile Instrumental, and is exclusive to the Apple Music platform.
History
Bleedthrough
The initial concept of the album was an exploration of “loss and possible discovery of self, along with alternate layers of reality and perception set inside a nightmare you can't seem to wake up from; with lots of feedback”. Around this time mysterious quotes and binary codes appeared on the NIN website, including a passage from the book The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin, containing the phrase "bleed-through". The working title for With Teeth was Bleedthrough, referencing the phenomenon of audio bleed-through. In a question posted in the Access section of nin.com Reznor announced that the working title Bleedthrough had been dropped. Reznor stated that the name was changed because "it was supposed to be about different layers of reality seeping into the next, but I think some people were thinking about blood or a tampon commercial". "'Bleedthrough' is no more," Reznor wrote in a message posted on nin.com, "as the songs and concepts matured, the focus and theme of the album shifted somewhat--leaving me feeling that title was inappropriate. Or you could just say I changed my mind. Yes, the new album has a title and track list, and no I'm not telling you what it is yet".
With Teeth
Reznor commented on the change of direction for the album, stating that "About five or six songs into writing it, the songs started to sound good on their own and they didn't need this framework to work together,” and that With Teeth consists of "a collection of songs that are friends with each other, but don't have to rely on each other to make sense", however, the album's narrative arc describes "a difficult journey that begins with a nightmare and ends with acceptance of a new reality.”[2]
In an interview in February 2004 Reznor stated that the new material was “more song-oriented (than The Fragile). It's much more lean. It's going to be twelve good punches in the face -- no fillers, no instrumentals, just straight to the point…It's a complicated concept record, but reduced to just simple songs. It's not epic in its scope. It's minimal and a bit brutal." The album's final title may be a reference to a song of the same name by The Melvins, as Reznor is a fan.
According to a statement on nin.com, Reznor stated that producer Rick Rubin was Reznor's "mentor" and "source of inspiration" throughout the planning and writing process of the album. Reznor was also heavily inspired by the use of more analog electronic effects and instruments, specifically tape delay and modular synthesizers, stating that "computers, among other things, are ruining music these days. I hate the Pro Tooled sound of perfection and everything being 'fixed.' This record is most definitely 'un-fixed." During the recording of the album, Reznor listened to Gang Of Four, Public Image Ltd. and Pere Ubu.[3]
Themes
With Teeth, unlike most Nine Inch Nails albums, does not have a unified concept and deals with a variety of themes. Reznor wrote the album after overcoming undisclosed addictions and settling legal issues with his former manager, John A. Malm, Jr.:
A lot of this was [about] my relationship with myself, the world at large, and where I might fit into that...Also [it's about] my relationship to a disease that's going to kill me if I don't deal with it, and I came very close to that. Hopefully disguised enough that it's not a terribly boring record about recovery and addiction and that nonsense.
Reznor seemingly gained a new awareness of world issues, and showed this by speaking out against the US Government, as well as becoming a spokesperson for PETA. Some songs seem to deal with addiction ("With Teeth", "Sunspots"), while others have a more political intent ("The Hand That Feeds", "Right Where It Belongs").
Packaging and artwork
With Teeth was the only NIN album packaged without proper liner notes until the standard edition of Hesitation Marks. Lyrics as well as detailed credits for the album were only available at the album's promotional site (both onscreen and in the form of the aforementioned PDF poster.) Reznor had originally wanted to release a more lavish package for the album once the second leg of the tour had begun, but this never materialized. Lyrics were eventually included in the Definitive 2019 Vinyl edition.
In an interview with The Toronto Sun, Reznor stated his original plan:
What do you do when you buy a record now? I either download it or, more likely, I'll immediately put the CDs I buy in my iPod and then I lose them. Artwork is disposable now. I liked albums. It was an exploratory process. I don't see that with CDs. They're junk. It feels like we should just by-pass packaging all together. If you want to, you'll be able to buy a real deluxe book that the record fits into. It's a super nice thing that will have a big essay from me and a lot of pictures. It's more of a presentation and the artwork that you have now, that maybe you didn't quite understand, you'll see how it all fits into this. You'll get it.[4]
In 2021, Rob Sheridan revealed that gel electrophoresis was used in the With Teeth artwork, as had been suspected by some fans.[5]
Touring
For more information, see Live: With Teeth
The album was supported by a major tour that visited clubs, arenas and amphitheaters around the world. With Reznor clean and sober, the shows took on a somewhat new kind of atmosphere, with greater musical precision and a slightly more upbeat attitude. The amphitheater leg was a co-headlining tour with Bauhaus. The tour incorporated new visual elements, with different kinds of lighting and set design than had been used on previous tours. Portions of the tour were filmed and released as Beside You In Time on DVD, HD-DVD and Blu-ray in 2007.
Live
All With Teeth era songs have been played live.
Album Credits
- Writing, arrangement, and performance: Trent Reznor
- Production: Trent Reznor and Alan Moulder
- Programming and additional production: Atticus Ross
- Engineering: Alan Moulder, Leo Herrera, Trent Reznor, James Brown, and Rich Costey
- Additional production and engineering: Gem Archer
- 5.1 Surround mix: James Brown and Trent Reznor
- Sound design: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
- Mastering: Tom Baker at Precision Mastering
- Surround mastering: Adam Ayan for Gateway Mastering
- Additional drum programming: Jerome Dillon
- Design: Rob Sheridan
- Project Coordination: Leo Herrera
- Studios: Nothing Studios (New Orleans), The Village Recorder, Sound City Studios, and Grandmaster Recording Studios (Los Angeles)
- Assistance: Brett Bachemin, Dustin Mosley, Pete Martinez, Andrew Alekel, Chad Essig, Neal Ferrazzani, Jason Wormer, and Andy Brohard
- Drum technicians: Jeremy Berman, Gerch for Drum Fetish
- Management: Rebel Waltz, Inc.
- Booking: Marc Geiger for WMA, Emma Banks for Helter Skelter
- Legal: Ross Rosen, David Altschul, Zia Modabber
- Business management: Bill Harper, Irwin Rennert, Michael Walsh
- Styling: April Napier
- Hair: Eric Gabriel
- Grooming: Cori Bardo
- DVD-A menus and imagery: Rob Sheridan
- Additional DVD-A art design by The DZN Group
- DVD-A Authoring: Paul Angelli, DVD Labs
- Audio asset coordination: Michel Etchart
- Executive producers for DVD-Audio: Coutney Holt, Paul Bishow
- Supervising producer: Jim Belcher
- Producer for DVD-Audio: Kamran V
- "The Hand That Feeds" video directed by Rob Sheridan
All songs written by Trent Reznor ©2005 Leaving Hope Music/TVT Music (ASCAP) Administered by Leaving Hope Music, Inc. Dave Grohl appears courtesy Roswell Records
Thank you: Rick Rubin, Jim Guerinot, Mark Geiger, Jimmy Iovine, Jackie McPherson, David Cohen, Steve Berman, Mark Williams, Dennis Dennehy, David Saslow, Courtney Holt, Candace Berry, Martin Kierszenbaum, Angelica Czekalski, Wendy Diplock, Kathy Angstadt, Kamran V, Jeff Anderson, Shaynee Lee-Gordy, Lindsay Chase, Keith Hillebrandt, Brenda Romano, Robbie Lloyd, Melissa Taylor, Gretchen Anderson, Christina Meloche, Sidney Miltz, Kim Kennedy, Jamie Myers, Doug Idleman, Tim Lightfoot, Gino Ascani, Mark Stephen, Susan Swan, Dave “Rave” Ogilvie, Danny Lohner, Charlie Clouser, Claudia Sarne, Don Passman, Eric Ferman, Larry Tull, Ian Astbury, Maynard James Keenan, Jason Pettigrew, Jen Foster, Jim and Bebe Rose, Kevin Llewllyn, Lindsay Dakota, Myriam Santos-Kayda, Nancy Berry, Pete Thorne, Ralf Dietel, Richard Devine, Rupert Parkes, Alien Tom, Simon B, Steph Jorgl, Ted Revely, Tiffany Andrews, Tamar Levine, Michael Angelos, Walker Rollins
Support: Chandra Lynn @ DigiDesign, Andrew Grad @ West LA Music, Dave Casey @ Apogee, Mike Harris @ Harris Audio Systems, Guitar Center, Roger Cordell @ Big City Music, Bela Canhoto @ Native Instruments, Chris Goodwin @ Eastwest, Tim Godwin @ Line 6, Priscilla Larey @ Larvey Engineering, Orange County Drums, Billy Siegle @ Fender, Truetone Music, Steve "Coco" Brandon, Paul J. Cox, Ross Reeck
Nine Inch Nails Live With Teeth: Alessandro Cortini, Jerome Dillon, Aaron North, Trent Reznor, and Jeordie White
External Links
- With Teeth online content (archived version with functional downloads)
- With Teeth PDF at Google Drive
- With Teeth PDF at mega
- Early album and web imagery by Rob Sheridan
- With Teeth concept art by Rob Sheridan
- With Teeth teaser videos
- With Teeth at nincatalog.com
- With Teeth Instrumental at Apple Music
- With Teeth at Amazon
- With Teeth at eBay
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