Review: "Year Zero" by Nine Inch Nails

Right up front: I'm completely blown away by the latest Nine Inch Nails album.

To be honest I had given up on Trent Reznor ever recapturing the lightning in a bottle that was The Downward Spiral – the subsequent NIN releases were an exercise in frustration and diminishing returns. And while the virtual world viral chase that surfaced in advance of the album looked interesting, I just didn't imagine that the album itself would live up to the hype. Holy Jeebus, was I wrong!

For one thing, it's got a sound that feels current and classic at the same time. Gone is the hollow, underproduced feel of the tedious With Teeth. That classic heart-pounding power chord kick that you look for in a NIN album is back, along with noise, noise and more noise. And I don't mean just some noisy rock fuzz; I mean crazy, squelchy machines-imploding-and-running-off-the-rails noisy. And somewhere between the last album and this one Trent recaptured that signature 'funky industrial drummer' vibe that always separated his stuff from just another dude with a guitar and a drum loop.

For another it's a full-blown concept album (I know The Fragile was billed as a concept album as well, but I'm pretty sure only Trent could tell you what the concept was). The setting is the near-future America on the brink of a socio-political sci-fi apocalypse. Sounds like shooting fish in a barrel if you have even a passing familiarity with NIN's favorite themes, I know...but it works. There's plenty of getting on our knees, being on our knees, and getting up off our knees, but in this context of a totalitarian military/religious state, there's a compelling reason for it.

Lyrically he manages to examine several different point of view beyond master and servant, and pulls off some very cool new vocal and musical twists along the way without losing the essential NIN of it all. I don't know if it's going to resonate with folks that weren't already predisposed to dig his stuff, but I hope it does because this deserves to be heard.

So reaching the end of the disc, I'm already certain that Year Zero is one of my top ten albums for 2007. I'm also realizing I'm gonna lose a lot of free time to chasing the mysteries of this thing online....

See also:
NIN: Year Zero Mania