I picked up the new Nine Inch Nails live cd "And All That Could Have Been" today, and 

it has me on fire for them all over again (I was a HUGE nin fan back in high school, 
and I've kept up with all the halos, but I haven't listened to them in a while until 
this).

The first cd is all live material, and it's one of the best live cds I've ever heard. 
All of the songs flow seamlessly into the next (even though the recording was from 
about 30 different concerts), the quality is amazing, and even after hearing these 
songs a thousand times each, they're exciting. And make a note, I'm not usually one for
 live albums (and I hate remix albums as a rule). If you're fairly new to nin, it's 
about a perfect mix of material from all four albums, so it's like getting a "Best Of",
 but even better since I think he's managed to improve on some of the imperfections on
 the original recordings ("Piggy", for instance, is 100% better on this cd than on The 
Downward Spiral). The songs that sounded dated on Pretty Hate Machine have lost their 
80s synth, and the industrial harshness of "Gave Up" and "Wish" have been rendered 
palatable to the average listener while retaining their seething emotion (hear that, 
nu-metal hordes? you don't have to screech like a banshee to express anger!).

I actually got the (not so) limited edition 2cd set which includes the bonus cd, Still,
 which is 6 re-recorded and re-worked songs and 3 brand new ones. Personally, a few 
extra bucks for the 2nd cd is completely worth it for the new versions of "The Becoming"
 (which I forgot I loved so much), and the extended version of "The Day The Whole 
World Went Away". And the new title track is exceptional. It's still Fragile-era NIN,
 but with a bit of Doves and Mogwai thrown in. mmm. Even songs I didn't particularly 
like the first time around (like "Something I Can Never Have"), are much improved in 
this new session. The only downside I can say for the whole release is that some of 
the acoustics sound hollow on the bonus disc, but I believe that's because they were 
recorded in his house (err, New Orleans mansion) rather than the studio.

And the last aspect -- the packaging. The inside is a 3-fold digipak, a'la The Fragile,
 but the slipcover is grey/silver fabric with black and brown scrintprinting, which 
I believe is just about the sexiest packaging I have in my collection. I just keep 
touching the thing.

so yes, A+++ release today, and I wasn't even really expecting it to be a tenth this
 good. I'm on my 3rd playback, and it's even gotten better each time.