IN REVIEW: Nine Inch Nails - "The Slip"

If I had a time machine, I'd transport back to 2004. Seems kind of an odd choice, I know; the world wasn't really all that different four years ago. George Bush was fucking the world over, gas prices were high, and the music industry was dying. One would think that, given the luxury of time traveling, a more important time would be at the top of the list. There have been, after all, many moments in history that would be truly awesome to relive (my birth) or experience for the first time (what happened after I blacked out from chugging all that Hermits wine). But, no; I stick with 2004. That way, I can look back on Nine Inch Nails' discography and, more specifically, Trent Reznor's torrid pace of one studio album every five years. Throw in all of the singles, remix albums, live sets, videos, etc., and at the end of 2004 we were given a grand total of seventeen "halos" in fifteen years.

If I had a time machine, I could go back to 2004, tell you that not only was "With Teeth" coming in May 2005, but that in the three years to follow there would be three more albums, one being a double-disc instrumental opus, one being a sprawling post-apocalyptic concept album, and the other being distributed free of charge through Trent's own website. And that "The Slip" was Halo 27, the tenth "halo" within the span of three years.

In 2004, you would have bet anything against that. Which would make me a very, very rich man today.

If you're not a NIN fan, you may not have been paying attention to Reznor's antics for a while. Suffice to say, there's bound to be a million articles circulating the web regarding Trent's chosen methods of business recently, and not nearly as many actually discussing "The Slip" in a purely musical context. For the benefit of the uninitiated, I'll provide a Coles Notes of the situation, and you can look into the details on Wikipedia or something.

Last year, Trent Reznor got really angry with his record label (and, come to think of it, the music industry in general) for being greedy little pricks. Late in the year, he left his label to a small amount of fanfare, and folks started to speculate about what NIN's future held. In March, "Ghosts I-IV", a 2-hour instrumental melting pot, was released for free (vol. I mp3's), cheap (I-IV mp3's), more expensive (2xCD), and holy shit (fancy box, bluray, vinyl, CDs, Trent's John Hancock). This initiative, it's safe to say, made Trent Reznor more money than any of his previous projects did (possibly all of them combined). Not bad for an experimental two-disc set that he didn't even have to write lyrics for. Much ballyhooing was heard regarding the revolutionary approach to releasing music. So, today, the coup de gras; "The Slip", Nine Inch Nails' second release in two months and the first example I can think of (by a major label artist) where the entire album is available in a variety of formats (mp3, FLAC, Apple lossless... basically as awesome sounding as you want) directly from the artist's website, is completely free of charge, and is totally okay to make copies for your friends, post on your website, or any other means of what is usually considered copyright infringement. Bottom line: an unprecedented and potentially industry saving/destroying tactic that could have only come from a forward-thinking artist like Trent Reznor.

So, then, now that you're caught up, is "The Slip" worth the price? Duh. It's hard to get ripped off by something that's free (unless she has the clap). See, that's the thing that makes this album so hard to review; can you really rip on something that you didn't have to pay for? Isn't the point of these reviews, at their essence, to convey to the reader whether or not I think he/she should shell out cash for it? In a rare case such as "The Slip", is it a good review if it's all dogshit except for one song that people would, theoretically speaking, pay money for? You can see the paradox.

Thankfully, these moral tightropes needn't be traversed, because "The Slip" is not shitty at all; far from it, actually. In fact, the first half of this album packs more punch than any of Reznor's recent body of work. Sliding in after a quiet, brief intro, "1,000,000" breaks down the door and starts gunning. Riding a distorted groove and stomp-worthy back beat, it expertly combines the tunefulness found on "With Teeth" with the jagged noisefests that inhabited "Year Zero". And oh yeah; it rocks really hard. It's followed by the crushing "Letting You", which can only be described as Reznor's twisted take on punk; it could be the noisiest, heaviest song in the NIN catalog (and no, I didn't forget about "Wish"). Of course, man cannot live on rock alone. "Discipline", the set's radio single (whatever that means these days), chugs along on a smooth groove that wouldn't have sounded out of place on "With Teeth".

The album's midsection packs a terrific one-two punch. "Echoplex" jumps out of the speakers like the older, smarter, more handsome brother of "Only". It's melodic, foot-tapping, and a prime example of Reznor pulling off awesomeness without the aid of smack. It's followed by "Head Down", front runner the highlight of the set. The riff is menacing, the beat dirty but funky, and Reznor's vocal style in the verses is reminiscent of "Meantime" era Page Hamilton. Its chorus ups the melody a touch, but on the whole, this is Nine Inch Helmet, and it is amazing.

Which makes it all the more disappointing when the tune sputters out and makes way for "Lights in the Sky", a brooding and introspective mood piece (granted, it wouldn't be a NIN record without it) that kills the buzz of the exhilarating first half of the album, and ushers in a lull that lasts until the album's last track; "Lights" is followed by two meandering instrumentals (after "Ghosts", didn't he get this out of his system?!) to make the trio of tracks a near 16-minute long crater in the album. By the time "Demon Seed" brings back the vocals and ups the tempo again, it's a welcome return, but you can't help but get the urge to move it higher in the track list next time you listen so that you don't have to sit through 15-plus minutes of mood music to hear it (I find it works best between "Letting You" and "Discipline").

Maybe, in this respect, "The Slip" works better as an EP than an album. At 43 minutes long, it's not much longer than "Broken" anyway (not to mention far shorter than any NIN album since "Pretty Hate Machine"). After all, the two instrumental tracks don't exactly feel at home here; they'd probably be better served cut out of your "Slip" folder and pasted onto the end of "Ghosts". What you're then left with is a short but solid batch of songs, right up there with the best of Reznor's post-"Downward Spiral" work.


7 GOOD
Release Date: May 5, 2008 • Null