Nine Inch Nails (NIN) is an electronic industrial rock project that has been actively making music since 1989. With an expansive discography and decades of musical history, it’s nothing but a welcome surprise that Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, the two official members of NIN, are still producing new music to this day. Projects such as the “Nine Inch Noize” album, the “TRON: Ares” movie soundtrack, its subsequent remix album “TRON Ares: Divergence,” the 2025-2026 Peel It Back tour and even more upcoming content are direct evidence to the continued work of Reznor and Ross.
On April 17, 2026, electronic artist Alexander Ridha, who makes music under the name Boys Noize, and NIN released a collaboration album together. The album, titled “Nine Inch Noize,” consists of studio quality versions of the many remixes played by NIN and Boys Noize on the Peel It Back tour as well as during their April 2026 Coachella performance.
NIN has worked with Boys Noize in the past, most notably being when Boys Noize opened for the Peel It Back tour. After NIN’s last touring endeavor being a limited run in 2022, they came back to traveling internationally to play live shows in the summer of 2025. The tour name Peel It Back is a reference to a lyric in the song “March of the Pigs” that says, “Take the skin and peel it back / Well, doesn’t it make you feel better?”
The tour uses this as a theme throughout, starting with a ‘peeled back,’ intimate performance of their calmer songs before ramming up into the heavy hitters. Reznor described in an interview in the Winter 2025/26 issue #48 of the “032c” magazine that the tour was like, “stripping away the artifice and getting into something raw, naked and exposed—something uncomfortable. It led to a tour that I personally feel is the best incarnation of Nine Inch Nails that has ever existed—and I don’t say that lightly.”
“It’d be fun to see them live,” said Matthew Brennan, a freshman at Ida B. Wells-Barnett High School. “My mom really likes them, so we’d go together and it would be really fun. I love seeing live music.”
Beginning on June 15, 2025 in Dublin, Ireland, the Peel It Back tour performed throughout both Europe and North America in 2025, and finished off the second leg of the tour fully in North America in 2026. On March 16, 2026, the tour ended at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, Calif. Although, that wasn’t the last of their recent live appearances. During Coachella 2026, NIN was featured alongside Boys Noize, performing under the name Nine Inch Noize. Plus, during the Nine Inch Noize performance, Reznor brought out his wife, Mariqueen Maandig Reznor, to provide vocals for some of their songs.
Along with that, at the last Peel It Back show, Reznor said that touring wasn’t definitively over for NIN but also not a 100% guarantee. “We may tour again. It won’t be next month; it won’t be this year. I never said we were intentionally stopping, and I never meant that…what we’re going to do is work on some new music, and make some new s***. And if we feel inspired, and if we feel we can beat this [tour], we’ll see you again. And I hope to see you again, and I hope you come see us if we do.”
Students at IBW acknowledge that Reznor is aging and continuing to tour may become increasingly more challenging, but they are still hopeful for another NIN tour. “[Reznor] is 60 years old so if he’s trying to calm down and do things less, I completely respect that,” said Gunner Bolton, a junior at IBW. “That man has worked his a** off to get where he is, so he can take all the breaks he wants I think. If he never tours again I’d be fine with that, I mean I’d be sad and disappointed that I didn’t get to see the man but that’s okay.”
Others believe the passion is still there for NIN to do more touring in the future. “I feel [Reznor] probably will [tour again] if he’s kept going for this long,” said Evelyn Kirtley Filipo, a junior at IBW. “Probably not as frequently, but maybe one more [tour].”
Furthermore, NIN has won three Grammy awards in addition to many other awards during their career. This year, NIN won a Grammy for the Best Rock Song with “As Alive As You Need Me To Be”. This win was especially impressive since it has been over three decades since NIN’s last Grammy win, in 1995 when their song “Happiness in Slavery” won Best Metal Performance.
“As Alive As You Need Me To Be”, released on July 17, 2025, was the most popular single for the “TRON: Ares” soundtrack, which was fully released on Sept. 19, 2026.
Reznor and Ross have been making movie soundtracks together since “The Social Network” (2010), in order to both engage in different creative endeavors and allow Reznor to spend more time at home with his five kids; however the “TRON: Ares” score is the first made by them to be released under the NIN branding.
Tom MacDougall, the head of Disney Music, asked Reznor and Ross to release the soundtrack under the NIN name instead of their usual “Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross” labeling, and according to Reznor, “It changed the choices we made in terms of some of the sounds, and the inclusion of vocal songs.”
The album focused on a dark electronic sound, trying to match the legacy of the series’ previous iconic film scores, made by Wendy Carlos for the original “TRON” (1982) and Daft Punk on “TRON: Legacy” (2010). While the “TRON: Ares” film has mixed reviews, one of the highlights for critics is its captivating soundtrack from NIN.
Plus, NIN also has a library of remix albums that act as companions to their main releases, a good example being the “Fixed” remix EP made to go alongside “Broken.” The “TRON: Ares” soundtrack is no exception to this, as it pairs with “TRON Ares: Divergence.” This new remix album has both unreleased songs made in consideration for the film and several remixes of existing tracks, featuring artists on its songs like Arca and, of course, Boys Noize.
NIN, with many popular releases like their quintessential 1994 industrial record “The Downward Spiral” is by far not an unknown name in the cultural zeitgeist; and to students at IBW.
“I do very much enjoy NIN,” said Bolton. “It’s gotten me through a lot of hard times…[Reznor] has been able to put his emotions into music, and it feels so similar to my own experience where [the music] is like, ‘Yeah, that’s how it feels’. My favorite project is the ‘Broken’ EP. It’s just so raw and loud and there’s so much emotion in it; there’s all of his anger and rage and sadness and discontent.”
“‘The Hand That Feeds’ is pretty cool, it’s one of my favorites out of the few NIN songs I’ve heard.” said Susannah Hollow, a junior at IBW. “I’ve listened to ‘Head Like A Hole,’ ‘Closer’ and ‘Starf***ers, Inc.’”
NIN has left an amazing legacy of not only musical success but also emotional impact upon their fans. Many resonate with their older, more popular releases, but that doesn’t mean their new music doesn’t have great value to fans as well. It’s rare for artists to keep the same passion they held for creating and performing music that they had decades ago, but when they do, it allows for both new fans and those who’ve been following along since the beginning to celebrate all of their artistry.
“I just hope they don’t do that thing bands do where they all die and fall apart, I hope that he just continues to be a guy, y’know,” said Kirtley Filipo. “More music would be cool but I also just hope everything’s chill.”
