Okay, I don't necessarily buy into all of Trent Reznor's lyrics ("God is dead, and no one cares..."), but poetry aside, this album deserved all of the critical acclaim it received. The Nine Inch Nail composed what I consider to be one of the best albums of the 1990's, and Reznor shows that Industrial music is not just out there to be danced to. Nine Inch Nails uses a superb mixture of high-reverb guitars, keyboards, sound effects and beats to portray a spectrum of emotional highs and lows compressed into a flow which I feel is on par with Pink Floyd's "Dark Side Of The Moon." Reznor packs a hard and noisy whallop on the first half of the album which reaches a climax with the song "Big Man With A Gun". After this, things slow down dramatically until the final song "Hurt" hits you with one big, depressing knockout punch. The feeling conveyed on "The Downward Spiral" is phenomenal, and it's a must-buy for alternative and hard-rock junkies alike.