Album review: Nine Inch Nails, The Slip

Originally published in Freetime Magazine (7/29/07)

What is this? Trent Reznor is actually releasing a formal CD? Say it ain’t so! Not only that, but Nine Inch Nails’ The Slip, which was dropped in listeners’ laps for free back in May and is just now being released on disc, is actually a straight-on rocker, a first for the meticulous mastermind behind the trademark sweeping industrial beats of Pretty Hate Machine and atmospheric creep show of The Downward Spiral.

This sure isn’t the same semi-self loathing dark angel of industrial rock that painted the nineties black. This is the sound of a man on a mission. Reznor has an agenda - a message - and he’s really pissed off. A notorious stickler for dynamics, atmosphere and gradation, Reznor throws all his little rules to the wind and smashes into The Slip with a cocksure aggression.

Cutting ties with his label, Interscope, was certainly a creative rebirth for Reznor in many ways. The songwriter has sounded wholly liberated as of late, speaking out against record labels, offering his music for free, and unleashing an unprecedented (for him) gamut of material in a very small amount of time (this from the same guy who took an average of five years to finish a new album back in the ‘90s)

The Slip is one big, angry, outburst of rage. Within his troubled soul, Reznor’s found a new purpose - the fight for creative freedom - that is so absolute and so simple, that his music is reflecting its directness. Maybe the most striking thing about The Slip is its drums, which are very straightforward and very rock and roll. After all the synth beats and manufactured sounds, Reznor has found an appropriate focal point in the primitive act of bashing the skins.

And then, like an electrical storm, it subsides, slowing to a rumbling smog of distant dread. It’s here that Reznor finally summons his inner composer, first on the stalking, brooding “Corona Radiata”, which swells from an appropriate plod to a demonic rumble over the course of seven and a half minutes.

The album ends, though, not with a clear night sky, but with an aftershock. “Demon Seed” brings NIN back to the dance club doom of past cuts like “Heresy” and “Head Like a Hole”. It’s another message - that even though Reznor may have been able to let off some steam with The Slip, there will certainly remain a steady supply to come.