Riff Police! Pull Over! #115: Nine Inch Nails Vs Godmack

Between Nine Inch Nails 1989 debut album “Pretty Hate Machine” and 1994’s highly influential “The Downward Spiral” were a pair of EPs entitled “Broken” and “Fixed” which sowed the seeds that would become that sophomore record. The first of those, “Broken” saw something of a style shift from essentially darkwave gothic 80’s inspired synth pop to music heavier sound taking influence from the likes of Ministry and Godflesh and a precursor for the sound that would make “The Downward Spiral” so successful. The Dillinger Escape Plan even covered one of it’s highlights in “Wish” for their EP “Plagarism“.

Six years later in 1998, Boston Massachusetts Alternative Metallers Godsmack were snapped up by Universal Records who took their self released album “All Wound Up“, remastering and editing it before it’s major label re-release as a self titled affair. Big singles “Whatever” and “Keep Away” propelled the album to achieve 4x Platinum status thanks in part to a healthy dose of airplay on Hard Rock radio in the US. While those were the tracks that made the album a huge success in the height of the Nu-Metal era, it’s “Time Bomb“, with it’s clear similarities to “Last” by Nine Inch Nails that catches our attention. Godsmack guitarist Tony Rombola is known for his love of Alice In Chains and Rage Against The Machine is clearly a Nine Inch Nails fan as well…