Nine Inch Nails "Year Zero" Preview

By: Brett Hickman

Monday April 09, 2007

Secrets revealed
† Survivalism.mp3

On Year Zero, Nine Inch Nails' upcoming album (due out on Interscope Records April 17th), Trent Reznor has made some of his fiercest, most primal music to date. It's a welcome return to form after 2005's With Teeth (which, despite being utter crap, was a commercial success) and the muddied emotionalism of 1999's double-disc set, The Fragile.

What has managed to set Reznor on fire where bouts with drugs, alcohol, depression and being ripped off financially couldn't? Nothing short of America's President, "Premier Bush" as Borat would say. Reznor is mad as hell and on Year Zero he proves that even the most unlikely artists can tackle politics as spiritedly as any folkie.

The first single, "Survivalism," gives an idea of how Year Zero sounds sonically. It's a driving, tribal beat with guest vocals by Saul Williams, a Reznor fave. The song pulsates and spits, ranking among Reznor's best work ever.

Other songs such as "My Violent Heart," "Me, I'm Not," and "In This Twilight" contained on USB devices were left in various cities around the globe coinciding with Nine Inch Nails concerts. A NIN tour shirt revealed clues to a website (IAmTryingToBelieve, with several more sites of a similar bent popping up afterwards. All lead to different clues about the album's dystopian view of a future world.

After listening party promo copies of the album leaked to the internet Reznor began streaming the entire album on NIN, his official website.

Working again with Alan Moulder, Reznor has sought inspiration in the work of Hank Shocklee's Bomb Squad (of Public Enemy fame), particularly for "its innovative construction of layered samples and loops."

Whatever got Reznor worked up, its led to his shortest lapse between albums since the early 90s (just two years lag time between With Teeth and Year Zero). Reznor has promised that the sequel to Year Zero will follow hotly on its heels. If it's as ferocious as its predecessor any wait will be worth the while.