Recently in Music Category
So over the last few months, there have been two new releases from Nine Inch Nails -- the instrumental tracks Ghosts I-IV and the latest full-length CD, The Slip. Both are being released digitially via the NIN website, and it sounds like everything else is being done by Trent himself (including the eventual CD release). Considering his history of trouble with his record labels, especially with Year Zero, it's not particularly surprising to see him do things this way. I have to applaud him as one of the few artists that seems to have decided to embrace the future rather than being dragged there kicking and screaming, probably hurting their image (and their profit margins) in the process. However, the music industry isn't really my field of expertise, so I'll let others weigh in on that and give more useful analysis; what I wanted to get to was my impressions of these two releases.
Two of my favorite NIN tracks are A Warm Place (off Downward Spiral) and Help Me I Am In Hell (off Broken); I can still remember seeing them play A Warm Place live at the Assembly Hall when I saw them during their tour in 1994. Two full CDs of NIN instrumentals is something I can only drool over. However, when Ghosts I-IV was announced, I didn't realize it was all instrumentals until Marc told me that one of his kids had mentioned it and included that fact. It didn't take long for me to grab it, and I've been listening to it a lot lately. Like the other NIN instrumentals (and the soundscapes that Trent developed for the Quake soundtrack), the music is atmospheric, evocative, and definitely emotional, if you're primed for it (though nothing quite reaching A Warm Place's heights in that area). I could listen to this release for days on end (and I have). My only complaint is that most of the tracks are relatively short (about three minutes on average), but that's not really a huge complaint. There are a wide variety of instruments and styles featured, something I've come to expect from NIN, but it all works together beautifully. If you are a big NIN fan, especially if you really like the instrumentals like I do, check it out. At five bucks for the full download, it's a steal.
The Slip, released last week, is a bit more uneven for me. My first exposure to the CD (if it isn't on CD yet, does it count as a CD?) was from hearing Discipline on WPGU. It's definitely the most mainstream thing on the CD, I think, and remiscent of the style from Year Zero (noisy, but still very...melodic?). On the strength of that, I downloaded the rest, and for the most part I'm quite happy with it. Most of the other tracks are in a similar vein, but vary in mood. 1,000,000 and Letting You are faster and noisier, while Echoplex is much more sedate, for instance. The CD also features a pair of instrumentals, much longer than those on Ghosts, and they are just as good as anything on that collection. Overall, I have to admit that it's not quite as strong as Year Zero, which I thought was probably NIN's best CD since Downward Spiral, but it's still pretty damn good. It's well worth picking up from the website (I mean, Christ, it's free!), and I'll probably be buying the CD when it comes out this summer.
Two of my favorite NIN tracks are A Warm Place (off Downward Spiral) and Help Me I Am In Hell (off Broken); I can still remember seeing them play A Warm Place live at the Assembly Hall when I saw them during their tour in 1994. Two full CDs of NIN instrumentals is something I can only drool over. However, when Ghosts I-IV was announced, I didn't realize it was all instrumentals until Marc told me that one of his kids had mentioned it and included that fact. It didn't take long for me to grab it, and I've been listening to it a lot lately. Like the other NIN instrumentals (and the soundscapes that Trent developed for the Quake soundtrack), the music is atmospheric, evocative, and definitely emotional, if you're primed for it (though nothing quite reaching A Warm Place's heights in that area). I could listen to this release for days on end (and I have). My only complaint is that most of the tracks are relatively short (about three minutes on average), but that's not really a huge complaint. There are a wide variety of instruments and styles featured, something I've come to expect from NIN, but it all works together beautifully. If you are a big NIN fan, especially if you really like the instrumentals like I do, check it out. At five bucks for the full download, it's a steal.
The Slip, released last week, is a bit more uneven for me. My first exposure to the CD (if it isn't on CD yet, does it count as a CD?) was from hearing Discipline on WPGU. It's definitely the most mainstream thing on the CD, I think, and remiscent of the style from Year Zero (noisy, but still very...melodic?). On the strength of that, I downloaded the rest, and for the most part I'm quite happy with it. Most of the other tracks are in a similar vein, but vary in mood. 1,000,000 and Letting You are faster and noisier, while Echoplex is much more sedate, for instance. The CD also features a pair of instrumentals, much longer than those on Ghosts, and they are just as good as anything on that collection. Overall, I have to admit that it's not quite as strong as Year Zero, which I thought was probably NIN's best CD since Downward Spiral, but it's still pretty damn good. It's well worth picking up from the website (I mean, Christ, it's free!), and I'll probably be buying the CD when it comes out this summer.
