If you asked me to grade this record a year ago, I would’ve given it the 🪓 without a pause. Yet I find myself unable to do that now.. The more I listen to The Fragile, the more crevices the “filler” seems to actually fill. Tracks like “La Mer” and “Complication” used to strike me as half-baked attempts to mix “art” into Reznor’s clearly functioning formula, but I know better now: it’s an album that lulls you to sleep before slapping you in the face. Beyond that, the lyricism—Spiral but applied to the flailing fractures of two rotting lovers—hits harder now than it used to. Even still, its length makes it cumbersome, but not bloated. It’s not a weekly listen, so I won’t give it the +, but that doesn’t make it any less great. It’s probably Trent’s most mature—if not most panicked—masterpiece.