The record: Purchased sealed, record inside was scuffed, scratched, and dirty. The label did a really poor job at the pressing plant. Shape up Cold Spring, this is garbage and unacceptable in the audiophile era. I'd suggest illegally downloading the FLAC files as the vinyl is a finger in your eye, and they don't deserve to sell the CD.The music: Really cool record. It's definitely Coil oriented as it never really breaks out into the NIN noise of Fixed or Further Down. Very ethereal, like industrial ambient. I'm glad this was released as its material pulled from two of my favorite NIN remix records and sounds authentic and professional, but almost like out-takes. I have every Halo from the first three albums and would consider this essential for NIN completests or fans of either Fixed or Further Down.

Just cracked the seal on this to find out that it was scratched up. The surface noise on this pressing is just awful. It's like it got louder as the first side played on. Have no urge to listen to side 2 now. Would it be safe to say that no matter what, every copy of this record will not be in mint shape?

I still don't hear the music from the movie "Seven". My label on side A is about to fall off. Unacceptable.

Nine Inch Nails should have re-released "Further Down The Spiral" as a first time vinyl release and just added these songs. And please make it an "Audiophile Pressing" without the crackles.

Unfortunately a bad pressing...

I agree.

You should approach this from the Coil side of the things I think. I'm a fan of NIN, and of Coil and I really dug this more than I thought I would. It's more chill than the tracks released previously, and the NIN sound is really stripped back, like Coil isn't so much remixing as using some "found sounds" to base a few atmospheric tracks on. Even Gave Up is ...? Lower? It still has the elements from the Fixed version, it's just more Coil... It's hard to pin down, and fundamentally, that's what I like about it. I was expecting some discarded efforts not quite up to snuff with what officially saw the light of day on a Haloed release, but instead I was treated with some nice atmosphere soundscapes with a little Trent sprinkled over the top. If I were to tweak any of it, it may be to tone the lyrics down even further and let the sounds stand more alone, but that's a minor quibble because for the most part that's exactly what the tracks do. Recommendations for this will be hard though, I think. The die-hard Coil fans already have their colored vinyl copies, enjoying the fact that this body of work is FINALLY officially released, but the stanch NIN fan who merely tolerated the weirdness of Fixed won't find a lot of interest here. The folks like me; somewhere in the middle of this electronic wonderland will be mildly surprised with what's contained here. In the end, it put me in a Coil mood and that is not a bad thing.

Well put, Salsa. It's nice to hear the Coli element at work in these tunes, mainly The Gilded Sickness . I'd love to hear an instrumental version and certainly wish there were a nice 12" cut of "The Downward Spiral (The Bottom).

Totally disappointing. Do not expect a follow up to Further Down The Spiral or Fixed, which are my favorite NIN releases.

Given how involved they were with each of the records mentioned, that's a reasonable assumption, as long as caligulasremains hadn't bothered to download the 'Uncoiled' album put online for free two years ago, which had 4 of the 5 tracks present on this release.

Really? You were expecting that in a COIL release?