Disclaimer: I've been a
NIN fan since I was 18 years old and heard Head Like a Hole. For years I thought they could do no wrong.
Whew, okay, that's outta the way. I'm still a big fan, but a half dozen albums and 20 years later, both Trent and I are both a little softer around the edges. Sonically,
NIN runs the gamut of moods and themes, even within a single album. He screams, croons, broods and dances all within an hour, and his new album,
The Slip, is no exception.
But when I first heard their single, "Discipline", I stopped dead in my tracks. Whoa. Was this a Nine Inch Nails reborn? Was it a band that had taken notes from tour mates like
Ladytron and TV on the Radio and reinvented itself as some kind of indie-rock/industrial hybrid? The steady thumping bass was right out of Radio 4 and the whole thing felt like some sort of angry Rapture song.
Alas, the single does not represent the album. The album quickly deviates into noisier,
grindier pieces, that while intelligently created, often leave me cold. Don't get me wrong,
Reznors less
dancy pieces can be powerful works. But it's not his relationship to the
dancefloor that defines his work. It's his relationship to silence. Look back at all of the really memorable tracks from this band and you will see an intimate connection between sound and silence. "Closer", "Hurt", "Sin", "March of the Pigs", "The Day the World Went Away", "Only" - all of these songs are as much defined by the sounds they
don't make as by the ones they do.
There are some interesting pieces on this album and I still think Trent
Reznor is one of the true
auteur's of our generation. This album doesn't mark a new direction or a high water mark for Nine Inch Nails, but it does continue down a thoughtful, well-produced, relevant trail that began two decades ago.
You can download the entire album,
The Slip, at
http://www.nin.com/ for free. Entirely free. In almost any format. Cheers, TR.
