CD Review: Nine Inch Nails, 'The Slip'

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RADIOHEAD MIGHT HAVE grabbed headlines with its pay-what-you-want download of 2007's "In Rainbows," but with "The Slip," Trent Reznor's Nine Inch Nails is doing the free thing for the second time in a row.

Just like February's "Ghosts I-IV," "The Slip" is available for free download on Nine Inch Nails' Web site, and Reznor encourages fans to "remix it, share it with your friends, post it on your blog, play it on your playlist, give it to strangers, etc." (There are also deluxe CD and vinyl versions of "The Slip," too, though those cost money, natch.)

While Reznor's music-for-the-masses ideology is commendable, you might be more impressed by the stylistic variety on "The Slip." Though the album isn't necessarily as cohesive as Reznor's previous NIN works, such as the 2007 concept album "Year Zero," each one of the 10 tracks is a focused look into Reznor's dark creative consciousness.

From the brief intensity of opener "990,999" to the slow, instrumental build of "Corona Radiata," the album balances Reznor's most common themes: His seething rage against society at large and his disappointment and frustration with himself.

There's something especially desolate about the non-vocal tracks, such as "The Four of Us Are Dying," which channels "The Fragile's" "Just Like You Imagined." The latter, used in the trailer for the film "300," is an eerie, layered, buzzing build-up of guitar and piano; similarly, "The Four of Us Are Dying" (named after a first-season episode of "The Twilight Zone") is built around a single guitar riff and surrounded by terse, pulsing electronica that draws a listener wholly into its tangled web.

Reznor sings on "1,000,000," which is made the same kind of driven, robotically rhythmic stuff as "With Teeth's" "The Hand That Feeds." But some of "The Slip's" vocal tracks ("Letting You," "Head Down") become a blur because of Reznor's synthed-soaked singing. In contrast, the best tracks on "The Slip" are those that actually let Reznor sound, you know, like a real person, such as the melodic, piano-based "Discipline" and the somewhat New Order-esque "Echoplex," which features lyrics almost worthy of Morrissey ("My voice just echoes off these walls / I just slowly fade away / Fade / You will never, ever, ever, ever get to me in here").

With all this introspection, has the ever-intense Reznor finally found his sensitive side? Probably not. In fact, on "Demon Seed," he proclaims, "I will use my voice / And I will use my fist / To destroy / Everything I can." Sounds good — literally.

Though "The Slip" may be a somewhat uneven whole, Reznor's track record of two albums so far this year is downright impressive. Should we expect another album by this winter? Let's hope so — and let's keep it free.

Written by Express contributor Roxana Hadadi