Test Spin: Nine Inch Nails

The new Nine Inch Nails’ politically conscious sixth studio release seems more focused on delivering its intense conspiracy message about the end of the world in year 2022, aka Year Zero, than it is on the production of intense music. Many of the album’s tracks, which are improvised and sound like old-school NIN, are different with each listen and best when listened to in entirety. The use of different instrumentals, textures and electronic sounds going on at the same time, allow this album to sound even better after it’s repeatedly played. Once you listen carefully to the words, you will be able to fully appreciate what each song unexpectedly reveals. Year Zero considers a range of viewpoints about our world’s impending truth by taking a look fifteen years into the future. Although many of the songs are catchy, it’s hard to picture any of them on the radio, which is why this album needs to be purchased if you want to hear Reznor belt out about the government’s greed, power, control and its inherent political and ecological consequences for us all.