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Welcome introduction of oblivion, is repeated obsessively "is anybody listening?". Those voices, filtered and distorted, almost seem to draw a connection with another desperate cry for attention: "Where is everybody?" From "The Fragile" by Nine Inch Nails. Few artists have been so fascinated by the possibilities (and limitations) of the communication in the digital age as Trent Reznor. In sound research, but especially in marketing and interacting with fans, the leader of the NIN was one of the first to embrace change. And no one was better than him to put music in the film adaptation of this revolution (The Social Network) and interpret the coldness and epic.
With the composer Atticus Ross (already present in the aforementioned soundtrack), the singer and wife Mariqueen Maandig and designer Rob Sheridan, Reznor continues to explore the same themes, leading to the extreme in a post-apocalyptic future. The video for "Ice Age", released in late 2012, is perhaps the ideal introduction to the work: the band is locked in a cabin while something happens outside of inexplicable and disturbing, the strings of the banjo coldest ever heard repeating the same notes indefinitely while under electronic sounds are becoming more invasive, we see images of movies tender and reassuring but in which human figures are obscured, and finally the band itself becomes almost a hologram, surrendering to the Ice Age-to-digital of the title.
The titles of the other tracks are just as faithful to the content dystopian album: the evolution in the world of How To Destroy Angels, did not lead to anything good. Welcome entire oblivion, when men have the upper hand on the machines take only the paranoia and messages fragmentary survivors. In the duet / dialogue between Trent and Mariqueen of "Too late, all skirts," the two voices come together to affirm that "the more we change, the more everything remains the same," while in "Keep it together" when the singer sighs of feeling disappear The companion does not come to her rescue to save her, but to externalize the same feeling. Meanwhile, beat, very similar to those of the soundtracks fincheriane, bouncing in the background throughout the album without ever exploding, punctuated only by interference and glitches. But when the formula for success, he began to tire, comes a surprise: "How long?", The single carrier and the piece of pop opera - as if daring experimentation that the band is to be granted make a song under four minutes with verses and choruses. You need an exception that does take your breath halfway through, but one wonders what might come out if Reznor had the courage of lightness, if he dared to paint the same apocalyptic scenarios in pop. Or maybe "How long?" is a commercial compromise because - it should be remembered - after years of militant independence, the musician is back in a major. The future does tricks.
TRACKLIST:
"The wake-up"
"Keep it together"
"And the Sky Began to scream"
"Welcome oblivion"
"Ice Age"
"On the wing"
"Too late, all gone"
"How long?"
"Strings and attractors"
"We fade away"
"Recursive self-improvement"
"The loop closes"
"Hallowed Ground"
