Nine Inch Nails are synonymous with industrial rock not because they invented the genre but because they perfected it. The brainchild of singer, producer and multi-instrumentalist Trent Reznor, the band achieved a poetic and provocative ferocity by blending metallic guitars with stabbing synths and distorted club beats. While their early releases, including 1994's The Downward Spiral, are dystopian fever dreams caked in cold, electronic static, later efforts like 2013's Hesitation Marks find Reznor and company incorporating gnarled scraps of art rock and darkly elegant atmospherics.