Nut Suite. Mini reviews of albums old and new. Minimum words. No fuss. No spoilers [?]. Occasional smugs.

Saturday, May 26, 2012

NINE INCH NAILS / Year Zero (2007)

Year Zero is dark, like peering through a smoky looking glass. It’s also dense and overly-layered, making it almost impenetrable. Interestingly, it lacks the introspective musings that NIN usually offer up; instead, it's a concept album… religious/political nonsense… America…year 2022, etc. Boring. It's noisy and frustrating; you could argue that so was Broken (1992), but at least it was focussed and knew when to stop. YZ goes on forever, dragging me into a state of sensory ennui. Some rehashed riffs from The Fragile (1999) excite briefly before being lost in the maelstrom. A few tracks stand out like pillars of light from the flat landscape. It's a manifesto, and it's not something I can fall in love with.

Songs of Note: In This Twilight; Zero Sum

2½ (I'll push the goddamn button myself) out of 5

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