Album: “Year Zero”

Artist: Nine Inch Nails

Label: Universal Japan

Release: Tuesday

Availability: CD, iTunes, Ruckus and streaming on MySpace – www.myspace.com/nin – and at Yearzero.nin.com

This is an album from the future.

Recorded largely while touring since their 2005 release “With Teeth,” this newest offering from industrial auteur Trent Reznor was inspired by a daydream about the end of the world. What followed expanded far beyond the normal horizons for a record.

Prelude

The world of “Year Zero” began with a Nine Inch Nails tour T-shirt on Feb. 12. Highlighted letters on the shirt spelled out the phrase “I AM TRYING TO BELIEVE” – the first of many Web sites devoted to the backstory of the record.

Days later, USB flash drives containing the first two singles from the new record – “Survivalism” and “My Violent Heart” – were found at concerts in Lisbon, Portugal. Additionally, these drives contained further links to alternate-reality Web sites, along with data appended to the audio files that, viewed in a spectrograph, revealed a phenomenon later identified as “The Presence.”

More sites went online daily, further depicting elements of the album’s vision of the future through purported organizations: Church and government Web sites, message boards and intercepted telephone calls were just some of the devices used. Was this marketing for a new album, or something more?

On Feb. 16, Reznor shed some light on the subject.

“What you are now starting to experience is ‘Year Zero.’ It’s not some kind of gimmick to get you to buy a record – it is the art form . and we’re just getting started,” Reznor said on his blog on Nine Inch Nails’ fan site, The Spiral – www.nin-thespiral.com. “Hope you enjoy the ride.”

After this revelation, numerous fan sites sprung up, trying to collate and speculate on all the new information. Although the rate at which sites were coming out slackened, they were still going up at a steady rate. Two more songs, “Me, I’m Not” and “In This Twilight,” were intentionally leaked in the same way as the first two, along with the video for “Survivalism.”

Paralleling this non-traditional distribution, the album was previewed to the public in a series of listening parties hosted by Interscope Records throughout early March. Then, on April 4, the entire album was streamed at Yearzero.nin.com and on Nine Inch Nails’ MySpace page, and is still available.

The hope, said Rob Sheridan, Nine Inch Nails’ photographer, cinematographer and artist, was that the combination of fan loyalty, extras in the package and the openness of the release would entice fans to purchase the CD, despite the availability of the free stream.

Setting

The album takes place in America in the year 2022 – the “Year Zero” the title refers to. In this future, things have not gone well. We have fought nuclear wars with several Middle Eastern countries and suffered dirty bomb attacks. Militaristic evangelical factions are running the government and the military, oppressing everyone in the name of security. Public water supplies are laced with a drug that seems to cause some of the very problems it’s supposed to prevent. Also, possibly thanks to a new street drug named Opal, people are encountering some sort of non-human “Presence.”

In this dystopia, a group of renegade quantum physicists find a way to send information back in time – to us. That’s what the record, and all the associated content, represent – a chance for us to save ourselves from this future.

The Record

Every Nine Inch Nails record sounds different. This one is almost an alternate history project in itself, sounding similar to what the band could have first sounded like, had Reznor played more to his industrial inspirations. Recorded almost entirely with laptop setups on the group’s tour, the album sounds rough, but this only adds to the atmosphere. The album is abrasive, noisy and minimalistic. Blended into all of this noise are Reznor’s unmistakable vocals and just enough of his pop sensibilities to make it danceable.

However, the album doesn’t have a uniform sound. Though it is a concept album, the narrative is non-linear. Each track explores “Year Zero” through the mind of a different person, using a different style to do it each time. We see the horror of transformation in “Me, I’m Not” and slavish devotion to evil causes in “Capital G” and “The Good Soldier.” The approach is similar to Gary Numan’s early work – an oppressive, alienating world explored through unique electronic music.

Even without any of the supplemental material, the societal and emotional picture painted by this music is bleak and complex.

With access to the album’s booklet and the plethora of Web sites, things become more involved. The songs give only the emotional reactions of the people in this world – the extra context adds another dimension.

This may be the most complex album ever released – its scope far exceeds its packaging. It defies any attempt at a normal review and can’t be considered as “just another record.” This is a “1984” for the post-9/11 set. Check it out.