Nine Inch Nails - The Slip

Nine Inch Nails – The Slip

As a firm believer that 95% of instrumental ‘intro’, ‘outro’, and ‘transitional’ tracks are needless, to have an album half-way filled with these unneccesary filler tracks is purely annoying and seems to show a lack of true effort on behalf of the artist. This release seems to consist partly of leftovers from Ghosts as well as Year Zero, and the album does nothing to help the songs meld together to form a cohesive product.

With the album being offered for free as a digital download, the compression sure is sloppy. For fans wishing to save space and have a format most compatible with their computers and music players, the mp3 download bundle poorly rewarded them. Quite frenquently the bass and guitar lines peak and crunch (more often than I believe the artist intended them) making such songs as “1,000,000” sound like someone’s slowly letting air out of a balloon throughout the whole track. Even Trent Reznor’s vocals sound weak and untouched in this release, making the whole album feel like a half-assed attempt at brilliance.

The only redemptions for this album are a few decent tracks hidden in the mess (“Letting You” and “Head Down”), and that no one got conned out of money for the (dis)pleasure of listening. I can only hope this travesty of a release is a clever ploy on the part of the artist to make a statement about what downloading is doing to the integrity of today’s music.

Suggested Tracks:
“Letting You”
“Head Down”