Yahoo! Music Review

Released on 16/04/07
Label: Interscope Records

It is with trepidation that you approach Nine Inch Nails' sixth album, "Year Zero". This, after all, is Trent Reznor's concept album, setting out a dystopian vision of the world 15 years hence, one in which the human race reels under an onslaught of mind-controlling drugs, fascist propaganda and dirty bombs. Fine: we can work with that. But why did Reznor have to trot out the old "soundtrack to an imaginary film" cliché? It's just plain silly.

Fortunately, the album deploys an oblique tone to convey its political message, so we don't have to endure any clumsily expressed thoughts on, say, IMF policy. Further to Reznor's credit, the targets he does go after are well chosen. The cover of the album juxtaposes an image of a businessman's arm holding a bible with one of a soldier's arm holding a gun; and the songs within delve deeper into the evils of Christian fundamentalism, Machiavellian US foreign policy, corporate avarice and political hypocrisy. At this moment in history, it's the right stuff to be singing about.

You knew there was a "but" coming though, didn't you? The problem with "Year Zero" is that the medium kills the message. Where four-year gaps between NIN records are typical, Reznor has produced this follow-up to 2005's "With Teeth" in record time, and sadly it shows. "Year Zero" is, like all NIN records, immaculately produced, but it singularly fails to expand Reznor's sonic palette.

In stark contrast to the excellent "With Teeth" (which dragged NIN's sound kicking and screaming into the new millennium), everything here sounds familiar: lead single "Survivalism", for example, resembles a sedated "March Of The Pigs", while other tracks recall the dreary dreamscapes of "The Fragile", a 1999 record that stands as a bad advert for cocaine. While we're adding to the charge list, what's with Reznor's singing? Fearful whispers and screams of rage are his forte; here, there's too much middle-aged moaning.

Of course, "Year Zero" isn't all bad: this is, after all, Trent Reznor we're talking about, and even at half-power he has his moments. The album opens with a thrilling blast of fiery electro-rock, and later there are times when paranoid lyrics mesh with the music's pulsing malevolence to create an atmosphere resonant with the mood of the times. Still, that's arguably more due to the world getting scarier than any progress on NIN's part, since even in his lyrics Reznor is revisiting ground already covered on 2005's devastating "The Hand That Feeds".

So, "Year Zero" misses its target. Not to worry, though: this is only part one; part two's sure to be a return to form, right? Over to Reznor: "This record takes place at a pivotal point in mankind's existence", he recently told Rock Sound, "and on the next record I'm deciding the fate of the world." Oh. Jesus.

    by Niall O'Keeffe