So, new Nine Inch Nails album will become available for sale April 17. So what, you may ask? Well, allow me to provide a discourse on what’s so special about Year Zero.
We’re looking at a concept album, for starters, about a very dystopic world in the very near future. Again, so what? For the conspiracy theory fanatics out there, this will intrigue you. It all started with a tour shirt with certain letters highlighted, revealing a code. Since then, what has leaked out onto the Internet is a variety of bizarre and disturbing information, ranging from population control drugs distributed in the water to something called the Presence to a church-sanctioned military unit. I’ll give you a moment to let your imagination run wild with that.
Some links:
I Am Trying to Believe (write the guy on the site and wait for the reply)
Another Version of the Truth (click and drag your mouse around the page, then once inside, look for the mp3s)
Be the Hammer (contains clues)
105th Airborne Crusaders (contains clues)
Church of Plano (also contains clues)
Consolidated Mail Systems (try to log in or register)
I’m not going to reveal too much more, as it’s much more fun to discover this on your own, and there’s a lot to discover and bend your head around. If you don’t have the patience for this, then check out the Echoing the Sound forum.
I haven’t seen anything this elaborate in marketing since The Blair Witch Project, where they set up a website that played off being a real documentary based on found tapes. As we know, Trent Reznor is quite good at this sort of thing, how to pique interest by way of teasing his audience, and making his albums and other merchandise collector’s items (note how the releases are numbered).
Now, you may say “well, that’s all fine, but how’s the music?†Two songs have leaked so far (through the elaborate puzzle mentioned above), “My Violent Heart†and “Survivalismâ€. The latter started getting airplay February 16, and while in the single-oriented vein of “The Hand That Feedsâ€, it is different. It’s dirtier, and more aggressive. Even in the lyrics, where he uses lines such as “I got my propaganda/I got revisionism/I got my violence/In hi-def ultra-realism/All a part of this great nation/I got my fist/I got my plan/I got survivalism†Trent is going out on a limb a bit. With “My Violent Heartâ€, it gets even dirtier. I suspect some circuit-bending instrumentation was used on the track, and has some interesting use of noisier sounds. It carries moments of quiet intensity and then throws itself into a rally cry. “You and I, we may look the same/But we are very far apart/There’s bullet-holes where my compassion used to be/And there is violence in my heart†to be later followed by “On hands and knees/We crawl/You cannot stop us all/Our blood will stay/We will not go away†really sets the mood for what’s to come. Trent’s angry about what’s going on in the world, and he’s raising the battle flag.
Track listing:
1. “Hyperpower!“
2. “The Beginning of the End”
3. “Survivalism”
4. “The Good Soldier”
5. “Vessel”
6. “Me, I’m Not”
7. “Capital G”
8. “My Violent Heart”
9. “The Warning”
10. “God Given”
11. “Meet Your Master”
12. “The Greater Good”
13. “The Great Destroyer”
14. “Another Version of the Truth”
15. “In This Twilight”
16. “Zero-Sum”
Of course, in about a month and a half we’ll find out if the gamble Nine Inch Nails is playing pays off, but I think Year Zero is going to be something special.
Hold onto your hats, kids, Trent’s got a plan.
