I`ve never heard such an apt title for an album as "And All That Could Have Been". While it seems mandatory for every respecting industrial-rock artist to release an unnecessary live album while millions of those are already floating around in the bootleg scene - remember Marilyn Manson`s "Last Tour On Earth"? - those albums usually disappoint one way or the other.

Case in point: "And All That Could Have Been". The first CD of two contains concert recordings of the Fragile-tour. While it`s _basically_ nice to hear `Terrible Lie`, `Piggy`, `The Frail`, `Gave Up`, `Wish`, `Suck`, `Head Like A Hole` and `The Day The World Went Away` played live, there`s not really much use to it. Nine Inch Nails` performances thrive because of their visual entertainment. When stripped of that, what remains are usually very faithful replicas of the album songs. The only difference between the album versions and the live versions usually comes down to Trent singing to soft or loud and the audience applauding. So far for the negatives. The live-part of "And All That Could Have Been" is excellently (over)produced, the setlist includes most of the classic NiN songs and the performance itself was pretty good.

In competition with the bootlegs, it would definitely win on points.

However, far more intriguing is the second disc. Here, one can find acoustic/unplugged and stripped down versions of some of the slower NiN songs as well as some new material. `Something I Can Never Have`, `The Fragile`, `The Becoming`, `The Day The World Went Away`, they`re all given the same treatment which creates a whole new interpretation and atmosphere for those songs. While usually it works out for the best, especially for `The Becoming`, it`s not always like that. With its horrible off-key piano play `The Day The World Went Away` has become an awful play best to be skipped. The rest of the songs are instrumentals that are nice for atmosphere but not worth mentioning when judged alone.

So what to think of all this? If you`re a NiN fan you probably have this album already, but if you`re one of those people who looks at the band with a critical eye you might have to take a listen to this album first. For me, the excellent rendition of `The Fragile` alone justifies this album, but for people less impressed with slower songs it`s better to leave this album alone.