Nine Inch Nails – “Survivalism”
From the Nothing album, Year Zero
Link to stream on MySpace
After taking a 7-year hiatus following The Fragile, Trent Reznor returned to the fold in 2005 with With Teeth, accompanied by muscles and a tan. I was scared. I understood when he grew the long, stringy hair and the fu manchu—so he discovered the wonders of absinthe, good for him. That was okay, but I have to admit that the new drugless, ripped Trent with a crew cut was perplexing. “The Hand That Feeds” was a decent comeback single, which showed that Trent can do disco, and not completely f*ck it up. However, most can agree that he could have done better. After listening to With Teeth the first few times, I figured that it just had to grow on me, but after it did not, I was actually fine with that. It still gets a rotation once in a while, but currently sits near the bottom of the playstack. It’s Nine Inch Nails Lite, and once in a while that’s acceptable.
I figured that it could have been worse… he could have enlisted Pharrell Williams or Timbaland for cameos. He could have started to dabble in screamo. He could have started hanging out with that choad from My Chemical Romance or that choad from Fall Out Boy. At least he’s still Trent, even if it is Trent Lite.
So I heard that Nine Inch Nails has a new single out. It’s off of the upcoming album, Year Zero, which is slated for an April 17 release. Titled “Survivalism”, it’s begun its obligatory rounds on the radio waves, though you can stream it at the band’s MySpace page (link provided above). It was made public on Friday (Feb. 16), though it was discovered on Feb. 14 that if one were to dial 1-310-295-1040, one could hear a clip of the song. Fans discovered this by typing in a sequence of discolored numbers that appeared among the tour dates on the back of the band’s latest tour shirt. That Trent, what a guy…
While I can’t say that I love it and it is TEH AWESOME!!11!, I certainly don’t hate it. The music starts out with some whirring and blipping (that continues throughout the track) that we heard plenty of times when we decided to check out electroclash a few years back. If one were to make a 50/50 (or maybe 60/40) mixture of Trent Lite and Trent Genuine Draft, this is what one would have. It’s not Trent Doppelbock or even Trent I.P.A., but it works. The pace of the track is similar to “Starf*ckers, Inc.”, and the song itself is like if “Starf*ckers” and “The Hand That Feeds” had a kid, and that kid had Tourette’s Syndrome. The chorus is either sung by Trent and the rest of the band, or Trent layered over other Trent with voice transformers. I tend to presume the latter. Like I said, I certainly don’t hate it. It’s better than just about everything else floating around on the radio right now, so I’ll take it.
Rating: 
