Nine Inch Nails: The Slip

Until recently, Nine Inch

Nails founder Trent Reznor wasn't known for being prolific. But in the three

years since 2005's With Teeth, he's doubled his output of the '90s, with Year

Zero in

2007, a four-part instrumental collection called Ghosts I-IV earlier this year, and The

Slip,

originally available digitally in May for free at nin.com, but out now on CD.

Just as Year Zero received less attention

for music than its guerilla marketing—the concept album's elaborate story

could be pieced together and elaborated upon using clues from various

media—The Slip has gotten more attention for its flagrant flouting of

music-industry standards. Reznor made it at breakneck speed for an artist of

his stature: It was written over the course of a month, recorded in three weeks

in his home studio, mixed and sequenced in an astounding single day, mastered

the next day, given artwork the next, and released before the week was out.

Unsurprisingly, The

Slip

lacks polish. Reznor's vocal flub at the beginning of "Discipline" remains, but

the songs don't sound underproduced, either. The hard-hitting early tracks "1,000,000,"

"Letting You," and "Discipline" are particularly good, though typical; Reznor

keeps farming the same fertile ground that yielded The Slip's predecessors. Also

typical is "Lights In The Sky," which follows the brooding, minimalist

tradition Reznor established with "Hurt" in 1994. An ominous fog hangs over it

and "Corona Radiata," a seven-and-a-half-minute song that splits its time

between ambient coda to "Lights," and a gradual introduction to the similarly

instrumental "The Four Of Us Are Dying."

Roughly 15 and a half

subdued, mostly instrumental minutes pass between the lively "Echoplex" and the

intense album closer "Demon Seed," more than ample time for listeners' interest

to wane. But in Reznor's digital age, fans can remix the songs at nin.com, or

simply leave the boring ones off their iPods. He wouldn't have it any other

way.