Bad Witch

Bad Witch (also known as Halo 32) was released on June 22, 2018 on Capitol Records and The Null Corporation. This album acts as the third installment of a trilogy by Nine Inch Nails, following the 2016 release of Not The Actual Events and the 2017 release of Add Violence. The album leaked on June 18, 2018.

Bad Witch was officially announced on May 10, 2018. The official nin.com website description states: "CONCLUSION. SHADOWS ON THE CAVE WALL." This is likely a reference to Plato's allegory of the cave.
On May 19, 2018, at "The Physical World" ticket presale, an exclusive listening station was made available for those in attendance. It gave fans the opportunity to hear the songs "Ahead Of Ourselves" and "Play The Goddamned Part" before the album's release.

The album makes use of saxophone on several tracks, more than any previous NIN recording. This is explained in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, where the interviewer compares the use of sax to that on David Bowie's Blackstar: "Clearly, Bowie is front of mind, and that was certainly an influence. In terms of the precision of arrangement, I think back to younger, reading about Psychedelic Furs as a bunch of students that all picked instruments and learned enough to make a record. As someone that had studied his ass off how to play an instrument, I thought, "You can do that?" Some people worried about technique or if it’s in tune, or if it’s played well. let’s just use it and add to the mayhem and message we are trying to convey. All this time had been just sitting in my studio staring at me. Taunting me."

Trent Reznor said via an interview with Lizzy Goodman on nin.com: "By the time we got to , we had an idea in mind but it felt… rehearsed. Predictable. In the end, what felt true was to say that we as a society and as a species are probably an accident, a mutation. Really what we are is fucking animals. And the illusion was enlightenment. The more we’ve connected with each other the dumber we’ve gotten and the more we decide we want to kill each other. We’re not some elevated transcendent beings, we’re bacteria in a jar. I wanted the art direction of Bad Witch to feel like shadows on a cave wall and we’re trying to figure out what it is and really there’s no nice, clean, safe scientific explanation. We’re just an accident. String theory and quantum physics is a fucking trick. And we’re not going to suddenly elevate ourselves into transcendent beings. We’re kidding ourselves. I know this will be an unsatisfying conclusion for some people. It isn’t what they want. They want it to be full matrix virtual reality, and this is the opposite of that, this is dirt and a broken computer chip and everything you believe in is really just bullshit."

Unlike the two preceding EPs, the title of Bad Witch is not derived from a lyric sung or printed in the album’s digital or liner notes. A definitive explanation of the title is yet to be revealed.
Like the two previous releases, Bad Witch is available as a 12" vinyl, a digital download and as a CD. Despite the fact that 'Not The Actual Events' and 'Add Violence' were marketed as EPs, Bad Witch is marketed as an album. In a post on ETS, Trent Reznor explained the decision behind the format change by stating that "EPs show up with singles in Spotify and other streaming services = they get lost easier. EPs feel less important in today’s music-isn’t-as-important-as-it-once-was world. Why make it easier to ignore?"

An exclusive run (limited to 2400), off-white vinyl pressing was also offered through Merchbar as part of the #SpotifyFansFirst campaign. A limited number of CD and vinyl copies pre-ordered through Australian retailer JB Hi-Fi came with a card autographed by Reznor and Atticus Ross.

The "scratch marks" seen in the Not The Actual Events and Add Violence cover artworks appear in a different form on the right border of the back cover of this album.
An alternate front cover was found, depicting different hues and contrasts on all five boxes, as well as a different hand and a different computer chip. The alternate cover appeared on a Caroline Records promo CD.
The middle bottom row image is adapted from a painting entitled "Despair" by Perham Nahl. The computer chip, within the fifth box, appears to be an image of the Intel 4004 CPU.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Atticus commented: "There's a primitive aspect or reflection of who we are in these times on there. It seems like we've been led. And I think we implied that in the cover, staring at shadows on the wall."