Nine Inch Nails are back in the conversation, and this time they’re dragging the club into the pit.
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have teamed up with Berlin electronic heavyweight Boys Noize for a new collaborative album, Halo 38, landing next Friday April 17th.
Rebranding themselves as Nine Inch Noize, the release marks the 38th entry in the band’s long running ‘Halo’ catalogue, it also lines up neatly with their appearance at Coachella this weekend, suggesting this won’t just live in headphones, expect it to hit stages hard.
A collision of industrial and electronic worlds
If you’ve been paying attention, this link up didn’t come out of nowhere, Alex Ridha, the man behind Boys Noize, has been orbiting Nine Inch Nails’ world for a while now.
“They could have asked me anything, I would drop everything and do it,” Ridha said last year about their Challengers collaboration. “Nine Inch Nails were always a reference to my music, especially on my last album, where I explored some of that more industrial sound. It’s quite abstract still. I’m so happy. It’s just crazy for me to, you know, tap into that world and work with legends that are also so nice.” (per Alternative Press)
That influence has already bled into live shows. Ridha has joined Nine Inch Nails onstage for ‘Peel It Back’, and previously delivered B-stage DJ sets built from NIN remixes, this project feels like the natural next step.
What to expect from ‘Halo 38’
Details are still thin, but the pairing alone says enough. Nine Inch Nails have always flirted with electronic abrasion, while Boys Noize thrives in distorted, club ready tracks. Together, it could land somewhere between a warehouse rave and a late night spiral.
Or it could go somewhere stranger entirely, that’s usually where Reznor does his best work.
Either way, Halo 38 looks set to be more than a side project, it’s another mutation in a discography that’s never stayed still for long.
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