A Warm Place

Probably the best song that Trent Reznor ever laid his 96 insturment playing hands on. Its basically an insturmental, despite what the above write up says (this lyric is extremely muted in the actual song, and can hardly be classified a lyric). The emotion expressed through this song is so great that it transcends the normal angst filled Nine Inch Nails formula and creates something emotionally complex and inherently beautiful. It has a sound very akin to Trent's later album, The Fragile, in that subdued keyboard riffs are highlighted over walls of noise or guitar laden screaming. In hindsight, its interesting to think that he did not perform this song along side the newer tracks from The Fragile on his Fragility v2.0 tour. On this particular album (The Downward Spiral), is another excellent example of Trent's best work, Hurt. Contrast and compare.

Absolutely. It's probably my favorite song on The Downward Spiral, if I had to pick one. The feeling it gives me is one of beauty and hope, with an undertone of overwhelming sadness, as if whoever is telling the story of The Downward Spiral knows about the tragedy that is to come. So important to the development of the album's concept . . . if you've spent a lot of time listening to it, you'll understand how perfectly it fits. In short, it's one of the best expressions of pure emotion in music I've ever heard. Fuck the Get-Up Kids, this is real "emo."