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›Nine Inch Nails - The Slip
Nine Inch Nails are the ultimate enigma and the single most important being founder and song writer Trent Reznor a highly complex man at the best of times. Most renowned for the groundbreaking ‘The Downward Spiral’ it has felt in recent times that that is what Trent as a musician and person has been on. Last years ‘Year Zero’ was somewhat underwhelming but that did not stop the band from giving us a performance at last years Reading Festival which significantly overshadowed headliners The Smashing Pumpkins.
No one ever knows quite what Trent is going to do next and he never fails to surprise because after so many years of long gaps between albums in the space of a year there have been three release. First the conventional ‘Year Zero’ then at the beginning of this year the ‘pay-what-you-can’ download of ‘Ghosts I-IV’ a 36 – track several hour long collection of sprawling instrumental music and haunting sounds. With ‘The Slip’ Trent has made it a completely free download from the band’s website with a statement saying he wanted to ‘give something back’.
The album is shorter than much of the bands previous releases but still holds to the ‘traditional’ sound of industrial and prog albums where it is best listened to from start to finish in order to truly appreciate it. The album itself can be split into two sections from the opening ‘999,999’ and the ‘industrial rock’ sound of ‘1,000,000’ ‘Letting You’ and ‘Discipline’ before the album seems to calm itself as it eases into the minimalistic ‘Head Down’ which is both beautiful and terrifying at the same time.
We then see another change into a trance like movement which feels like a void between a classical symphony and the pulsating beat of a dance track. It is a masterpiece of electronic music and brings to mind artists such as Aphex Twin. This is not an album you would put on to relax to nor is it one you can listen to merely in the background. It deserves concentration and respect for it is as much about subtlety as it is about grandeur. This is not the best music Trent Reznor has ever recorded nor is it very significant in terms of 21st Century industrial music. However what it does do is create an appreciation for the finer elements of music and teaches to view music as more that just a collection of notes and scales but as a work of art and an experience if you want to rediscover what it was that first enabled you to listen to music get this album. Its free so there’s no real excuse not to. As metal fans we can often become so absorbed in making our music as loud, heavy and fast as possible we often forget what it was that made music possible. Not a brilliant record but a valuable lesson. [7/10]
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