Every instrument, acoustic or synthetic, seems tuned to create the maximum aural abrasion. In ballads, standard instruments playing unhurried tempos somehow sound mocking, as if an ambush is just past the next chorus; in dance tunes, the electronic drum sounds all have a caustic edge. The music bristles, even when Reznor isn't snarling his words.

What separates Reznor from groups like Ministry and Nitzer Ebb is his inclusiveness. In the 1990's, too many bands equate integrity with choosing a niche and staying there. Reznor has other plans; he's not afraid to sound too pop, too dance-oriented, too industrial, too techno, too hard-rock. Where other noise sculptors rant as often as they sing, Reznor writes full-fledged tunes; he knows his way around melodic hooks, not just riffs. And while purists accuse him of selling out their insular genres, he actually trumps them; the music is no less transgressive, and possibly more so, because it sticks in the ear.

On his previous efforts, the 1989 album "Pretty Hate Machine" and the 1992 EP "Broken," Reznor has sometimes sounded as if he were posing, trying to sound more dangerous than he is. But with "The Downward Spiral," he has learned to use quiet as well as tumult. He sings not just in a shout but in a sinister baritone (akin to Matt Johnson of The The), and he uses contrasts between loud and soft to make every transition jarring.

From current rock's many factions, Reznor simply takes what he wants, usually submerging or smudging it. The title song, which is about suicide, begins with a descending line on acoustic guitar mixed with buzzing insects and burbling, tape-reversed keyboards. The music shifts to a heavy-metal stomp (which, as every anti-rock organization knows, is the sound of suicide) but one heard beneath screams and the same descending line on piano, while Reznor calmly recites the words.

For all Reznor's musical skills, however, his commercial edge is probably in his lyrics. Through inspiration or calculation -- probably both -- he has placed himself inside the head of an archetypal troubled adolescent. The character in his songs is rejecting authority, trying to make sense of sex, feeling every setback as a permanent scar and flailing in all directions. Reznor's persona has just discovered nihilism: "Nothing can stop me now/ I don't care any more," he sneers in "Piggy."