After 25 years and eight albums, Trent Reznor is finally working out his shit. The unexpectedly vulnerable “Hesitation Marks” lives in the shadows of his demons — the fear of relapse, suspicion of his partner, delusions of both grandeur and insignificance — but it’s on the path out of the forest. “I am home/I am free,” he sings on “Everything,” a straightforward rock song in a major key that’s unlike anything in his catalog. Despite that anomaly, and guest riffs from Lindsey Buckingham on three tracks, “Hesitation Marks” is more electronic than 2008’s muscularly strummy “The Slip;” the opening of the most classically NIN track, “Copy of A,” is pure acid techno. Reznor’s vocals come from down a hole, an inch away from the speaker or the fifth ring, toying with the listener’s sense of personal space as always. But this time when that closing piano tinkles in, it sounds peaceful, not ironic.
