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Are you ready to rock!
Nine Inch Nails succeeds with a new masterpiece
By Andrew Rooney
â?¦the album is long on plot and depth and almost equally long on music. The album begins with one minute and 40 seconds of industrial noise and segues into the admirable one-two punch of The Beginning of the End
How the times have changed for Trent Reznor, the mastermind behind Nine Inch Nails.
The Downward Spiral, which most will call his masterpiece, came out in 1994 to stellar reviews and was immediately deemed classic. Between 1994 and 2005s With Teeth, Nine Inch Nails only put out one album, not counting countless remixes of songs.
Now Reznor has done what many have thought impossible, he has released two albums within two years of each other. Apparently written backstage and on tour buses during shows promoting With Teeth, Year Zero is a concept album that finds Reznor and company branching out as they have never done before.
In the words of Trent Reznor, Whats it about? Well, it takes place about 15 years in the future. Things are not good. If you imagine a world where greed and power continue to run their likely course, youll have an idea of the backdrop.
The world has reached the breaking point - politically, spiritually and ecologically. Written from various perspectives of people in this world, Year Zero examines various viewpoints set against an impending moment of truth.
In February several tracks were purposely leaked by Reznor, who calls the concept of CDs outdated, and since then countless secret websites have been established that further explain the plot of the album.
All that being said, however, the album is long on plot and depth and almost equally long on music. The album begins with one minute and 40 seconds of industrial noise and segues into the admirable one-two punch of The Beginning of the End and the new single Survivalism before treating listeners to a palette of sounds that even Trent Reznor is impressed with.
Capital G is straight ahead classic industrial rock. The Good Soldier is a fairly introspective track with a slow and pulsing bass line. Zero-Sum contains a piano coda that is similar to something off of The Fragile, and The Great Destroyer contains beats that have never been used on a Nine Inch Nails album before.
In the words of Reznor, A lot of it was improvised. It is very tedious describing your own music. Its not just music. Its probably too long, but it felt like the right thing to do to paint the complete picture. It will sound different after a few listens. You can think about it and it will reveal more than you were expecting. You can dance to a lot of it.
Track for track, Year Zero is an improvement over the spotty With Teeth, and while not as immediate as The Downward Spiral or as rewarding as The Fragile, Year Zero is an adequate album that will keep listeners happy until either 2009 or more likely somewhere around 2012.
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