Year Zero

When a friend loaned me his copy of Year Zero, it was the first time I had sat down and properly listened to anything by Nine Inch Nails. (Since then I've really got into them.) At first I wasn't really fussed: it seemed like angry lyrics set to a load of electronic chaos. But after a few listens, the music started to resolve itself into something really brilliant.

First things first: Year Zero is a concept album set in 2022 (or 'Year Zero' under the new calendar adopted in the USA), in a world where the governments put sedatives in the water to keep the masses blinkered, dirty bombs go off in Los Angeles, climate change wreaks havoc and war is a constant reality. Towards the end of the album, a mysterious entity called The Presence begins to make itself apparent.

The story of Year Zero is told from the perspectives of people in very different positions: the compliant citizen, the disillusioned soldier, members of the government, rebels, even The Presence.

It's hard not to pick out highlights: Hyperpower! mixes fairly standard alt-rock with the sounds of marching, screams and explosions. The Beginning Of The End and The Good Soldier are damn catchy. Meet Your Master is easily the funkiest song on the album. The first half of The Great Destroyer is excellent, until it degenerates into bleeps and static, which is an aspect of NIN I don't particularly like.
For me, In This Twilight is the most poignant - it's also probably the most optimistic and radio-friendly song on the album, with (ironically enough given that I just said it was optimistic) two doomed souls watching the final sunset before the imminent apocalypse.

All in all, it's an excellent album and I look forward to next instalment of the story due out next year. I have to confess, I'm curious as to where one can really go from the extinction of the human race... (Then again, Muse managed it after Absolution and released their best album to date, so fingers crossed!)

'Year Zero' is without doubt the best long-player Trent Reznor has released since the epic concept album 'The Downward Spiral', material since has been hit and miss - 'The Fragile' lacking focus, 'With Teeth' NIN-by-numbers and the live albums a bit confusing. One wonders what the intended collaboration with the late r'n'b singer Aaliyah would have been like (possibly the 'Tomb Raider' material) or if a mini-LP akin to 'Broken' should have been released in the style of the great NIN-song 'The Perfect Drug.' The last few NIN albums seemed a bit familiar, something depressing about a 40-something still peddling adolescent angst - which is why 'Year Zero' is very welcome, since Reznor takes a tip from Bowie, and releases a concept LP concerning a slavestate dystopia not far in the future...

'Year Zero' clearly acknowledges the current zeitgeist, taking in the current US administration, the Patriot Act, Guantanamo Bay, and the War on Terror as well as the Culture Wars, American overconsumption, dominant capitalism, and (cliche coming), "The American Dream." Reznor nails this to a 'Punishment Park'-style world, a SF-dystopia akin to that of Gary Numan's early trilogy, 'Replicas', 'The Pleasure Principle' & 'Telekon.' 'Year Zero' could have been called 'Myths of the Near Future' (a Ballard title nicked by Klaxons), its subject matter refreshingly different to much of the self-gazing angst of Reznor's back catalogue. 'Year Zero' is also very sonically pleasing, a mindblowing sound at the right volume, and recorded in a similar style to the last Ladytron album or the Young Gods' 'TV Sky', which processes/samples guitars electronically. Reznor, who physically appears to be turning into Henry Rollins, has cited the Bomb Squad-productions of Public Enemy, here we get the 21st century version of that, and contemporary reminders of such acts as Cabaret Voltaire, Meat Beat Manifesto and Revolting Cocks. Reznor's beats and electronics are up there with Timbaland's excellent work for Bjork and Justin Timberlake. Very present tense.

The 16 tracks are a journey, a relentless 63-minutes that looks backwards and forwards across NIN's career. Intro 'Hyperpower!' is potent stuff, reminiscent of Coil, that leads into the next two rapid tracks, 'The Beginning of the End' and 'Survivalism' - Reznor taking no prisoners. 'The Good Soldier' in a way feels like a contemporary take on the material of 1988's debut 'Pretty Hate Machine', that electronic funk feel - while 'Vessel' feels like industrial electronic music via Aaliyah's 'Try Again' (and it also recalls both 'the becoming' and 'Ruiner' from TDS).

I'm not sure of 'Capital G', since the drumbeat reminds me of something dodgy from the 80s, though if it was on the new LCD Soundsystem album, I'm sure many people would be drooling over it. Much better is 'My Violent Heart', which starts with Reznor in rap/spoken-word mode over groovy spaced r'n'b, prior to the chorus-section where an addictive din worthy of 'Burn' ensues - sounds like a rave in an apocalypse and definitely my favourite track on the album.

Things stay as enjoyable with 'The Warning', which opens with electro-clatter, prior to a bass-line that sounds like The Cure being mauled and reprocessed by Throbbing Gristle ('Year Zero' has a similar digital-sonic feel to 'Part Two' by TG). The dirgy bassline is a joy and a strange hook to hang a song on, Reznor's vocals come in and out, up and down waves, and then a alien guitar riff occurs - sounds like Trent has been listening to a bit of post punk and refiltered it into NIN.

The rest of the album is as enjoyable, I won't bore you with a track-by-track analysis, 'The Great Destroyer' and closing track 'Zerio-Sum' are also highlights. The latter sounding more out there initially than Radiohead's 'Kid A'-stuff, this really could be released on Warp! Piano reminiscent of 'Something I Can Never Have' comes in amid the mesh of beats, despite the fractal nature of things, it's kind of a pop song - Reznor like Kurt Cobain and Jeff Tweedy is a songwriter who can't help but write pop songs!

'Year Zero' is the best Nine Inch Nails album since 'The Downward Spiral', Reznor is in rude creative health and the rumoured follow-up albums ('Year Zero' part of a projected trilogy) are something to look forward to. Year Zero indeed...

It goes without saying that Trent Reznor is a musical legend in his own right. Album after album, he changes his sound, tries to outreach his own limits, and normally somehow succeeds. And in "Year Zero", his latest offering, he certainly isn't playing it safe. The drugs have vanished, the gothic instrumental style, has vanished (apart from opener HYPERPOWER!). But does this make much of a difference? Based on "Survivalism" solely, no, and as for the rest of the album, you can give the same answer.

He flies through this album like a soaring rocket flying higher with more confidence, he sounds like he didn't try too hard, didn't find it too hard to make this record, and that is a little touch that makes it more pleasing overall. Obviously through, he can still produce the sense that the sky is going to fall in over your head like an enraged juggernaut, and can still make genuinely scary songs. The single, "Survialism" is glorious, unashamed and downright ugly. It's modern rhythm stunned my ears the first time I listened to it and it still does after its 30th listen. You will never to get tired of it, however that can't be said for every single song on this album.

"Vessel" has its jawdroppingly uncomfortably lyrics, "I'll let you put it in my mouth/ I'll let it get under my skin" and there is the mixture of electronica and heavy guitar, something which dominates the record, but there is something about it which puts you off listening to it again, it doesn't go too far. And the closer, "Zero Sum" leaves you feeling like you've heard it all before, but it's an interesting way to finish a record, to remind you of everything you've heard, whether it was purposeful or not.

But dear God, when NIN deliver, they deliver big time. "The Great Detroyser" enters its outrageous techno stage 1 and 3 quarter minutes in, your head shakes, not everybody will like it, but it sounds incredible with headphones on. As does "God Given", built up like a cheesy entertainer's words "come on, sing along, everybody now!", suddenly enters warp mode, disguising itself like a mystery, urging you to press that repeat button, just to check if you heard what you thought you heard.

There are strong moments, there are weak moments, it's one of those records.

Certainly not his best effort, but there are moments which could create the greatest, greatest hits album of all time if Reznor played his cards right.