Listen to Year Zero... NOW!




What's better than finding a leak of the creepynoisycool new Nine Inch Nails record (street date: April 17) on the internet? Why, being allowed to stream the creepynoisycool new Nine Inch Nails record guilt-free directly from the Year Zero web site, of course!

When you think about it, this an amazingly awesome thing for Mr. Reznor to do. In an age where every other week we hear about some rich bitch musician pissing and moaning about grubby little geeks "stealing" their music, it's nice to see at least one high profile artist that doesn't give two shits how much you're willing to pay to listen to their music, as long as you're listening.

With that in mind, I hope that the majority of people who enjoy this new record go out and support the NIN initiative by buying it. If Year Zero is a "hit", not only will it show that a lot of people still dig on cool music, but it will also show the grabass record industry what people like me have known for years; the internet is a good thing for music.

All that having been said, upon first listen I thought Year Zero was a strong Album of the Year contender right up until track 12, the brooding and wounded mostly-instrumental "The Greater Good". Not that it's a bad piece of music, but it does tend to slaughter the momentum of the album. After this point, the songs just kind of limp along and sputter out (with the exception of the truly excellent "In This Twilight"), bringing a lackluster close to a blockbuster album. All told, though, this record is by no means bad. In fact, it's quite handily the greatest thing Trent Reznor has produced since 1994's manical masterpiece The Downward Spiral. With a little tweaking in the sequencing, I truly feel it could have been NIN's new benchmark. Instead, Year Zero is merely a very good record, especially if you're a fan of dystopic subject matter, elaborate concepts (the sequel is due out sometime in '08, not to mention talk of a movie and all those crazy futuristic web sites), weird sonic experiments and shaking your booty. Oh, and fighting the power. Word.