Alternate NIN covers

COVERED MARKS: Further stoking anticipation for their upcoming Columbia album Hesitation Marks (slated to street 9/3 and available for pre-order at iTunes), Nine Inch Nails today give us a peek at no fewer than four versions of the cover art created by Russell Mills, who crafted the cover for NIN's 1994 classic The Downward Spiral, among other of the band's releases. The various versions were created for the digital album, the standard CD, the deluxe CD and the vinyl LP. You can find out what the different versions are called and learn what materials (expected media like oils and acrylics but also blood, dirt, copper wire and spent matches) were used to render them by going here. In a related story, the print version of HITS is made almost entirely from repurposed bat guano. But you knew that. (7/17p)