Nine Inch Nails' Year Zero: A Spirit Awakened by Travesty and Tragedy
Written: May 02 '07 (Updated May 02 '07)
Product Rating:
Pros: Trent whines less when he's telling a story, and he's re-energized by his change in focus.
Cons: Its aspirations outweigh its achievements, if only barely.
The Bottom Line: Year Zero is the album on which Trent gets his head out of his belly button and focuses on the world around him. The results are simply overwhelming.
shilmafone's Full Review: Year Zero [Digipak] by Nine Inch Nails
I'm 27 now. Trent Reznor's 42. 42! Shit, I remember when my dad was 42.
I also remember when an incoming new Nine Inch Nails release was a near-religious experience. I'm not going to lie -- I hopped on the bandwagon when The Downward Spiral was selling gazillions of copies and "Closer" was making black-clad high school girls all hot...it's not as though I was waiting with baited breath for its release; the first Nine Inch Nails CD I ever bought was the Closer to God EP, on a road trip to New York City with a church youth group no less. Still, when The Fragile came out in '99, I was right there with the mascara'd masses waiting, salivating for a chance to get my hands on the next bit of Trentified goodness. Not even Tori Amos or Chris Cornell, both of whom also had high-profile releases coming out that night, could distract me from the star of the show, the man who convinced me that music could be more than guitars, drums, bass and vocals, the man almost entirely responsible for my unhealthy attraction to the experimental merry-go-round that was Coil, the guy whose lyrics I've screamed along to probably more than any other in my car after lousy days at work. Really, I owe Trent a lot for what he's done for me.
And how do I repay that debt? By dismissively pounding into the ground how disappointed I was by With Teeth. For the record, it still sounds like an ego-driven vanity project from where I sit, but given our history, Trent probably deserved better from me.
Mercifully, Trent lifted his five-year rule on album production (probably with an eye on his quickly advancing age), and what do you know, 2007 sees the release of Year Zero. And what do you know, I'm back to loving him like he never sucked.
If you're reading this, you are very likely aware of the fact that Year Zero is a concept album, that there's a second part to it in the works for release in the near future, and that the entire advertising campaign for the album plays right into the whole Year Zero theme. Bits and pieces of the album have been "leaked" on USB drives in odd places (or so the lore goes), and the back of the album, when you buy it, features a telephone number to call if you feel as though "you or someone you know has engaged in subversive acts or thoughts", complete with a seal from the "US Bureau of Morality". In fact, here's the number: 1-866-445-6580. Call it. I'll wait. ... Did you call it? I called it before I had given Year Zero a single listen, when my only exposure to the album was a few of the leaked tracks. And it was as soon as I called it that I knew I'd love Year Zero, and here's why:
Trent is having fun.
Sure, the message is that if society keeps progressing in the way that it is right now, we're destined for a life in which so-called "Patriot Act"s take away our civil liberties in ways far more catastrophic than the one that is doing so right now; that the current rate of industrialization could be apocalyptic if it is allowed to continue; that the amount of compassion that the so-called "haves" show toward the so-called "have-nots" is in a state of inexplicable atrophy. But like Shirley Manson could have said, he's only happy when it rains, and he seems energized (if not downright titillated) at the amount of inspiration there is to be found in the modern failings of societal and governmental progress. As the message on the other end of the phone winds down, I swear I can hear Trent there in the background, breathing through a wide, evil grin.
Now,
How hard is it to see?
I sure wouldn't want to be
Praying to the wrong piece of wood... ("God Given")
I wasn't always as sure about Year Zero. First single "Survivalism" struck me as a little calculated, a little too moshpit ready, a little too forced and fast to make an impact. A couple of listens, however, and my opinion slowly started to change. Turns out, I was seeing things in it that I thought I should be seeing; really, there isn't all that much percussion in it, and despite the fast-paced, punk-ish drums and chants of the chorus, the real story of "Survivalism" is the way the rest of it slow-burns, adding layer upon skittish layer to the verse production, setting the stage for an explosion that never really happens; much like the video that accompanies the song, the buildup is tense and primed to explode, but the song sort of drops off a cliff at the end, never quite giving us the explosion that we are all-but-resigned to throughout its duration (in the video, we have a vague idea of the end of the story, but we never see the capture/execution/whatever that Trent and his buddies are subjected to). Trent is challenging us to change our expectations. Perhaps as importantly, he's squeezing #1 Billboard Modern Rock singles out of songs that sound absolutely nothing (and I mean nothing) like anything else on the radio.
And he's still got the album's hidden pop hit up his sleeve. "Capital G", slated to show up this summer on a radio station near you, features a rigid swing beat, evocative of KMFDM's '80s signature song "More and Faster", now updated for the Bush administration. "Capital G" is a fabulously disturbing portrait of one of the vaguely-defined rich and powerful in Trent's Brave New World, told from the first person, completely with fabulously staticky blues-influenced electric guitars and end-of-song vocal layering. Don't try to tell me that some power can corrupt a person / You haven't had enough to know what it's like, he says, challenging even the biggest fanboys to sing along, asking those fanboys to think for a second about what they're singing along to. It's a trick he pulls off throughout the album, actually, particularly toward the latter half of the album in songs like "God Given" and "Meet Your Master", ultimately culminating in the delightfully prog workout that is "The Great Destroyer", a Nine Inch Nails song that draws inspiration from Queen -- don't forget, he did cover "Get Down Make Love" all those years ago -- just before going all Autechre on us and blasting the hell out of our ears with static that somehow comes together to make a just-barely-defined beat.
His confidence even shows through in his voice, traditionally one of the weaker points (if only on a technical level) of the Nine Inch Nails experience. It's no secret that Trent's voice wouldn't exactly make Simon Cowell squeal with delight, but the entirety of Year Zero has Trent pushing that voice into realms it's never been. A bubbling-under-the-surface sort of song is made memorable via hip-hop-inspired vocal tics that show up at just the right time to make you question whether there's a minor seizure happening, until you realize they show up at just the right place in the beat to become as much a part of the percussion as the drums. "Meet Your Master" finds the '70s soul of Trent's voice, utilizing punctuated falsetto to establish a groove early on, and Trent never could have pulled off something as subtly melodic as "The Good Soldier" a few years ago.
There's plenty of noise to be found -- the chorus of "My Violent Heart" may be the most delightfully cacophonous thing on the entire album. There's also plenty of restrained aggression to be found -- the surprisingly funky "Vessel" is built entirely on a beat that insists on pummeling us with a big, bent distorted guitar hit every three seconds.
And yet...
Watch the sun
As it crawls across a final time
And it feels like...like it was a friend
If it's watching us
And the world we set on fire
Do you wonder if it feels the same? ("In This Twilight")
As happens so often for an artist known for his industrial aggression, it is Trent's quietest moments that once again are his most affecting, particularly toward the end of the album as he lays out the consequences of our actions. "In This Twilight" features a noisy, almost "Reptile"-esque factory beat, though the synths and the vocals that surround it betray the sensitivity and sorrow that Trent is portraying. The album ends on "Zero Sum", a largely spoken-word piece that speaks to our insignificance on the scale of a "grand scheme", and its keyboards, reminiscent as they are of With Teeth's closer "Right Where it Belongs", strike just the right note between melancholy and implicit call to action. Still, the most affecting moment on the album might actually be smack dab in the middle of an instrumental track when Trent finally has the courage to shut up for a few minutes; the largely staticky dull roar of the first half of "Another Version of the Truth" drops out at almost two minutes to reveal a single, held synth note. Clean pianos lead the way into "In This Twilight" in a way that has, on different occasions, brought shivers to my spine and tears to my eyes.
"Another Version of the Truth" probably has a message attached to it, too. I mean, just look at its title. Still, more than anything, it's a testament to the power of music, what it can do to you, how it can make you feel regardless of the chaos, death, and apathy around us.
It's comforting, in a way, to know that Trent Reznor still wields that power, especially when he's not singing. It's almost enough to make my 27 feel like 14 again, if only for a few minutes. Still, those minutes are priceless, and far more than worth the price I paid for Year Zero.
On his 2007 full-length studio follow-up to With Teeth, Nine Inch Nails mastermind Trent Reznor steps away from the relatively straight-ahead rock aes...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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