Nine Inch Nails - The Slip (2008)
The Slip was released earlier this year for free via the Nine Inch Nails website, mere months after the free release of the four-disc/part Ghosts I-IV album. I was never really a NIN fan growing up, but if someone's going to give away their music for free on the internet, then why the hell not see what it's about, ya know? I was a bit underwhelmed by the dark ambient meandering of Ghosts, so I wasn't expecting much from The Slip. But I must say, I'm really surprised by how not terrible this album is. More than that, I'm surprised by how good it is.
Having laid off the drugs and no longer content with being the musician of choice for cutters and goth kids, Trent is much more upbeat these days. The Slip seems to be along the lines of the more recent NIN albums (and to some extent, similar to the Reznor produced album The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust! by Saul Williams), so there's electro-industrial pop aplenty. But the songs feel more confident this time out than what I've heard of him recently. The pacing of the album is effectively managed. Save for the largely pointless and barely audible opener "999,999", the album starts off fast and upbeat, then slowly brings the mood down to darker territory as the album progresses. So while "Letting You" and "Corona Radiata" have very little in common, the journey that takes you from the former to the latter is nearly flawless in it's fluidity.
It's nice to see that an artist who has embraced music's digital age as readily as Reznor (which usually includes embracing the A.D.D. listening habits associated with it) is still giving great care to the craft of an album. At 43-minutes, The Slip is less than half the length of Ghosts I-IV. If he continues to trim the fat this well and doesn't indulge too much into ambient territory, I'd happily pay for the next NIN album.
Score: 7/10
"1,000,000"
"Echoplex"
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