Doomin' With Trent Reznor

Nine Inch Nails recalls busy afternoons of killing alien invaders.

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Last week I got Nine Inch Nail's free downloadable album The Slip, an album NIN man Trent Reznor recorded to release to his fans. Reznor was on a major record label for years and reportedly hated it so now he is on his own and free to record and distribute music as he wishes. After hearing the first few songs on The Slip I was taken back to an era over a decade ago to a time when Reznor was considered "cutting edge" and recorded music for one of the Doom video games.

In the mid-90's I killed a lot of time playing Doom and its various sequels on my PC and eventually Super Nintendo. Doom was one of the most harrowing and violent games I've ever played (and pretty much went to the limit of what I could tolerate as I don't follow those Resident Evil games for example). Ugly creatures clawed and shot lasers or threw fleshy spikes at you from out of nowhere as you traveled through intestine shaped hallways and dark abandoned rooms of radioactive material looking for ammo or a teleporter. While it was the stuff of nightmares as in this first person shooter you could literaly be relaxing when a creature would pop up in your face and kill you, it was an addictively fun game that I played for a few years. I had a universe to save!

And that's what I think of when I hear Nine Inch Nails, or I also think of those movies set in a dystopic future where people gather in a dark laser lit nightclub to dance in futuristic clothes sweatin' it out on some form of Ecstasy to the beat of something like NIN. Like that movie Strange Days with Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett. I recommend Strange Days if only for the fun of seeing Fiennes slumming in a sci fi flick unable to shake the gravitas he carried in The English Patient.

But what about the album itself? The Slip is an odd album taken as a whole, the first half is classic NIN with it's jackhammer dance beats, grinding electronica grooves and blasts of monolithic guitars topped by anxious vocals. "Discipline" is reminscent of NIN's classic "Closer" and the other songs maintain the catchy angst that the group (group being Trent Reznor) is known for.

Then the album takes a sudden and abrupt turn. Most of the second half is made up of slow, atmospheric instrumentals. In this section, the lengthy "Corona Radiata"is a highlight as it builds a feeling of ominous dread and stifled fear slowly yet steadily. The change in sound kills the sense of continuity from the first half but remains listenable.

As a freebie, The Slip is worthwhile to any NIN fan. Even a casual fan like me can enjoy it as Reznor gives the songs memorable hooks on the first half to ensure this isn't a throwaway. I'll never be a hardcore fan, NIN is way to downbeat and repetitive for me to really dig into. But taken in deliberate doses, Nine Inch Nails still can kick a hardrive into gear.

Nine Inch Nails "Discipline"