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Life & Arts

‘Year Zero' mostly offers up confusion

Fictional dystopian future, clever Internet marketing the theme 
of Trent Reznor's latest industrial effort 

by CHRISTIAN OCHOA 
The Daily Cougar 

Nine Inch Nail's new album, Year Zero, leaves listeners with mixed feelings of fascination and disappointment. 

Even before the singles hit peer-to-peer networks and the radio, the band dropped hints to tease NIN fans. The band released tour merchandise that had hidden clues and led fans to Web sites with a dystopian outlook on America's future. An alternate reality -- Web sites touting conspiracy theories, hidden messages on merchandise and even a color-changing disc -- have been created to come along with this album. 

The first single, "Survavilism," is probably the only song on Year Zero that has the gritty sound that made NIN a favorite among the bleak youth of the 1990s: "I got my propaganda / I got my revisionism / I got my violence in high def ultra-realism / All a part of this great nation."

As for the rest of the album -- well, the noise on Year Zero is appropriate for a bleak future that involves water polluted with mind-controlling drugs, the abolishment of civil liberties and a fundamentalist church gone amok. 

The first track, "Hyperpower!" is just the first example of instrumental tracks. War imagery returns in "The Good Solider," which is just one of NIN's many political tracks. In "Capital G," a political head's corruption and lack of concern leaves the speaker feeling cynical: "Well I used to stand for something / Now I'm on my hands and knees / Traded in my god for this one / He signs his name with a capital G." 

It's interesting to try and imagine the future, but maybe Year Zero should be visited only once. 
 

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