So I’ve always wanted to do a comparison review, and what better opportunity than the fresh release of Nine Inch Nails classic Pretty Hate Machine… What I’m doing here is I’ve quickly listened to the original, (and really, I’ve heard each song like 2600 times; I mean it’s been 20 years ya?) and now as I listen through the whole remaster, I’m going to type some comments… Simple enough… So here ya go…

Head Like A Hole: Fuller, more bass (in a good way). The mid section breakdown has a tighter feel through the percussion with more pop and separation in the bass drum. The guitars have lost that ‘tinny’ feel. Nothing sounds “redone” (because it’s not), but its definitely richer…

Terrible Lie: The whispered “Hey God” mixed into the percussive beats in the intro can now be picked out much better. There’s some rolling percussive sound in the second verse that although I hear it now in the original, I never noticed till the remaster. It’s that separation again. The mid “Don’t take it away from me” (2:10) building portion is much more powerful (building sounds I don’t recall at all can be heard…).

Down In It: I expected the bass to be what impressed me on this one, but it’s really how much better the high’s float above everything.. There’s a subtle snap to the kick, and and the keyboard melts nicely into the full pounding bass. There’s an overall sense of stereo playfulness but just enough to have you on your toes without feeling like the song is trying too hard to swirl around your head… The last 20 seconds tighten up that stereo range in a growing peak.

Sanctified: Here the new ‘fullness’ really comes into play. This song always seemed to be shallow to me (from a production sense), but the dancing keys, popping bass line and rolling swells now seem to create a fantastic swirl around your head. There’s lots of whispers and new noises here (again, I’m sure they were just more buried in the original)… The breakdown around 3:20 is now a robust basket of weird swells and sounds. Building through the third verse, these accent noises play an even stronger role. This song is now really way more powerful to me than it ever was… The transition into the next track is much more powerful as well…

Something I Can Never Have: Always was a powerful tune… Around the 2:40 mark more stuff I don’t recall (birds & airplane noises?)… But it works, real subtle… Reznor’s ability to truly spend the whole five minutes building the emotion is really accentuated here… There’s just a subtle increase in the soundscape, the level of the underlying bass, that really gives that emotional build… Again the third verse it feels like there’s extra attention to spatial separation of all these background elements… Fantastic…

Kinda I Want To: Feels again like the old version was mono compared to this… This song always kinda of jumped up and down sonically because of the drastically different samples in the verse portions. Now there is much more balance in the levels of these sections so it’s less distracting and more effective… The recall at 2:19 of sample bits from ‘Down In It’ seem to be much more active… Because of the more stereo feel, the break at 3:00 that basically goes mono is pretty impressive… Great cacophony of sounds to end the song leading into Sin…

Sin: Same as last song. The intro makes you feel like you always heard this through crap speakers before. You can now make out every element of all these intro samples… The verses sound fuller… More bass and I definitely find myself focusing much less on the vocal line because I’m caught up in all that’s going on in the stereo field… New clicks I never noticed in the ending…

That’s What I Get: Fuller, fatter right off the bat. This is really the first song where it seems some more attention might have been paid to the vocals. I don’t know if that’s because there’s a little less going on around the vocal lines in this song than others, but there seems to be a little more reverb maybe? Instrumental mid section (3:01) very clean… Ending instrumental build sounds great (key swells, percussive…).

The Only Time: The effect on the bass drum here in the intro sounds new? When the chorus kicks here, a change of pace where I’m not really bombarded with lots of stereo stuff happening and instead it’s very crisp but controlled… The bass feels to be more off to the left here than in the other songs where it filled the soundscape. Lots of push and pull between quiet and loud in this song and it’s much more effective with the remaster…

Ringfinger: Separation is the first word I think of here… The intro sounds like you’re in the room as it’s just Trent and the keyboard… Vocals dead center into second verse… Super bass thump and the key pattern hyper jumping between the ears… All the percussive effects are super tight contrasting the key/guitar/vocal reverb that can be heard real subtly… The whole break part following the ‘Jane’s sample is pretty sweet. The bass kinda sits behind your head while all the samples, keys and percussive effects jump around the sides and front…

Get Down Make Love: Tougher to compare because I didn’t listen to this song nearly as much as all the other tracks… First impression is this one almost seems extra loud and compressed. Kinda cleans back up after the sample intro… Vocals kinda swimming under all the heavy sounds… Second verse there’s some new samples introduced in there that are kind of cool… Second chorus more crunchy…

Overall: Right out of the gate, there’s a greater clarity… And as soon as Head Like A Hole kicks in, it’s clear, this is mastered at a higher volume. But it’s not purely a volume boost by any means. There’s an immediate sense of a greater spacial soundscape. It’s very natural and fluid, but things are definitely placed more precisely throughout the stereo range. It’s fuller, but clearer at the same time… Really exciting listening to this all the way through like this for the first time. I’ve never really paid enough attention to other remasters in this way before, but there is truly a significant difference. And it doesn’t feel forced or weird. This remaster doesn’t try to make you think this album wasn’t created 20 years ago (and that’s a good thing). It just gives a clear picture into what Reznor was probably really thinking with the extra bonus of 20 years experience under his belt… I HIGHLY recommend if you’re at all a NIN fan…