Nine Inch Nails – The Slip

I’m a little late to the party on this one, but the latest announcement from nin.com is of a new album entitled The Slip.

There’s a neat twist here that may surprise: it’s been released free to download. Yep, all you have to do is surrender an e-mail address and they’ll give you a download link, where you can choose from any or all of high-quality mp3 (LAME -V0 encoded), high-quality FLAC or m4a lossless, and high-quality 24-kbit/96Hz WAV download format.

As with the previous Ghosts release, all the downloads come with artwork in the form of a pdf file. The artwork for this release is minimal, but it definitely suits the music. It’s free because it is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Sharealike licence, which in plain English means you can share it with anyone you like, but if you make a derivative work (a remix) you must attribute the original work to Nine Inch Nails, and you may only do so if you are not a commercial entity.

As for the music itself? It’s moody; through some tracks, dark and brooding. Others are punchy and energetic, while others still are almost poppy in nature. For me personally, I’m reminded of the first time I listened to The Downward Spiral; sitting on a mates deck outside, with a bourbon in hand, whiling away the evening with conversation. In other words: to me, it’s true to the sound of Trent’s previous work. If music can conjure memories of good times past, it gets my thumbs up.

Trent has this to say about the album: