Sunday, 1 June 2008
Album Review: Nine Inch Nails, "The Slip"
From a price-versus-quality standpoint, "The Slip" is the greatest album Nine Inch Nails [ tickets ] has ever released--considering that the price tag was a note from bandleader Trent Reznor that read "This one's on me."After parting with his record label last fall, the suddenly prolific and fiercely do-it-yourself Reznor surprised fans in March with "Ghosts I-IV," a self-released, four-volume instrumental collection; earlier this month, he one-upped himself by unexpectedly dishing out "The Slip" for free via his website."Ghosts" and "The Slip" follow last year's "Year Zero," which, independent of any pricing criteria, is the crowning sonic and conceptual jewel of NIN's catalog thus far--a distinction that makes it a tough act to follow.Granted, the ARG plot that couched the release of "Year Zero" made that album much more than a simple collection of music. Absent of that, "The Slip" feels comparatively thin.That thinness also extends into the new album's overall production, which, next to the industrial bombast of "Year Zero," is a far more stripped-down affair, heavy on guitars and live drumming. It is, by NIN standards, a fairly straight-ahead, no-frills rock album.Why compare "The Slip" so heavy-handedly against "Year Zero"? Well, Reznor had said at the time of its release that "Year Zero" was merely the first installment of a larger work, and that "Year Zero, Part 2" would follow. The promise of seeing the "Year Zero" storyline further play out, and of hearing more music as sonically complex as that found on "Year Zero," is a captivating prospect, and one that makes "The Slip" feel kind of like a pit stop.Taken on its own merits, however, "The Slip" is no throwaway.The 11-track collection is largely filled with whiplash-inducing, frenetic cuts, standouts among which are "1,000,000" and "Head Down," two songs that feature a flurry of shredding synthesizers and guitars anchored by drummer Josh Freese's 4/4 rock beat on a decidedly garage-band sounding drum kit.Freese's back beat also holds center stage on "Discipline," a rock song sprinkled with just enough pop seasoning to make it sound equally at home in both rock clubs and dancehalls. (Test your subwoofer with that thunderous bass lift-off just past the 3-minute mark.)Adding texture are "Lights in the Sky," a quiet piano ballad reminiscent of NIN's 1994 cut "Hurt"; "Corona Radiata," a lengthy, ambient cut into which "Lights in the Sky" bleeds; and "The Four of Us are Dying," an electronica-heavy instrumental number that seems to have found its way here from the "Ghosts" sessions.Though not a career milestone, "The Slip" does bear the distinction of being a high-quality, full-length album that the staunchly anti-record-label Reznor was able to deliver to fans on a whim and for free. Tough to find anything in that equation worth complaining about.
Saturday, 24 May 2008
Sunday, 18 May 2008
REM to headline Oxegen
REM to headline Oxegen
Rapid eye movement make been confirmed as i of the headliners at this year's Oxegen Festival.
Michael Stipe and Co join Kings of Leon for the extended three
Monday, 5 May 2008
Wednesday, 30 April 2008
Aniston gets co-stars for new film
Aniston gets co-stars for new film
Jennifer Aniston and Aaron Eckhart's co-stars for their freshly drollery dramatic play 'Traveling' have been announced.
The Hollywood Newsman says that Martin Shininess, Dan Fogler and Judy Greer volition star opposite word the twosome in the Brandon Camp-directed plastic film.
'Traveling' tells the story of a widowed self-help author (Johannes Eckhart) wHO finds his feelings reawakened when he meets a hotel florist shop (Aniston) during one of his sorrow seminars.
Shininess testament meet the author's father-God, Fogler his managing director and Greer the acquaintance and employee of Aniston's fictitious character.
Actor Joe Marian Anderson volition act Aniston's character's beau in the film.
Whitesnake
Thursday, 24 April 2008
Foxy Brown Coming Out Of Jail
Foxy Brown Coming Out Of Jail
Rapper Foxy Brown is being released from jail on April 18, after serving eight months in New York's Rikers Island facility for violating her probation following several arrests.Billboard.com reports that Brown's manager, Chaz Williams, told them, "She did every single minute of her bid in jail, and she did it under the most severe conditions. They had her on continuous lockdown just because she is a celebrity. They were trying to break her spirit."Brown, who was born Inga Marchand, was sentenced to 12 months in jail in September last year, after she violated her probation following an assault on a neighbor with her Blackberry and a reported fight in a nail salon."She's going to get on top of her career again," Williams says, explaining she's in negotiations for her own reality show. "She's ready to hit the ground running and do anything she needs to do to get her career back on point." Photo courtesy of Rocafella.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)