Music Review: Nine Inch Nails - Year Zero

Trent Reznor's latest broadside is an expectedly paranoid, unexpectedly stymied look at the future. Fifteen to 20 years from now, Reznor opines in 16 largely chilly tracks, the world is bleak, underpopulated and hopeless. The original Nailhead rants against George Bush (the sloganeering, militaristic "Capital G"), evokes the romance at the heart of George Orwell's influential novel "1984" (in the first — and yes, catchy — single, "Survivalism") and almost breaks on through to the other side in "My Violent Heart," the scariest and most adventurous track.

This largely self-produced CD is peculiarly single-minded and solitary, even for Reznor, an obsessive and perfectionist auteur. It's even more hermetically sealed than other NIN productions, though it's likely to be explosive live, when NIN frontman Reznor surrounds himself with the best young guns in the business. On the CD, there are occasional helpmates like a backup singer or two, "hyperdrummer" Josh Freese, and brass and
winds on the virulently anti-Dubya "Capital G," the tune that makes this sci-fi-oriented album somewhat topical.

Several tunes hearken back to early NIN, like "Head Like a Hole" from Pretty Hate Machine and "Happiness in Slavery," one of Reznor's darkest forays, from Broken. Certainly NIN's longest single album, Year Zero also evokes The Fragile, his flawed, unexpectedly romantic double disk of 1999; instrumental tracks toward the end, when Year Zero settles down, lend the new CD an almost wistful cast.

What makes Year Zero less compelling than [With Teeth], its more pop-oriented 2005 predecessor, is that it's beating a dead horse.

Other rock auteurs like Roger Waters (in Pink Floyd's The Wall) and even The Who (in the bloated Tommy) have tackled social distortion and alienation to more dramatic effect. Waters and Pete Townsend at least attempted story lines. Year Zero seems all point, no plot, and when the point's the same in every tune--the world is getting darker and there's not much we can do about it--the work begins to pall no matter how varied the soundscape.

Article Author: Carlo Wolff

Carlo Wolff is the author of Cleveland Rock & Roll Memories and a long-time book and music critic. He works full-time as a business writer at Penton Media, specializing in articles about the hotel industry.

Visit Carlo Wolff's author page — Carlo Wolff's Blog