It's free and it's the future

With the recent focus on the dying record industry, it seems as if the methods in which artists release their material overshadows the actual content of their albums.

Flying under the radar after Radioheads In Rainbows “pay-as-you-go” release, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails (NIN) fame slowly led a revolution against the aging record companies with their surprise online instrumental album, Ghosts I-IV — a sonic masterpiece designed for “day-dreaming.”

Two months later, NIN has again shocked the musical world with its free full release of The Slip via their website www.nin.com; along with a smorgasbord of download options to make even the pickiest audiophile giddy.

Distribution aside, this album is alive. Energetic and raw, the crunching guitars are every bit as thick as we've come to expect from the band.

From the MC5 influenced “1,000,000” to the radio friendly singles “Discipline” and “Echoplex,” Reznor and company are razor sharp in execution. The evolution of the band can be heard throughout, especially with instrumental soundscapes “999,999,” “Corona Radiata” and “The Four of Us are Dying”; which resemble the haunting atmospheric direction of Ghosts.

Make no mistake; this is no instrumental album. With Reznor's angry and angst ridden lyrics at the forefront, the wall of sound that made Phil Spector a legend is given an industrial facelift in all its brutal glory. The use of hypnotic drum loops and industrial wear and tear is familiar territory, but with The Slip, the band manages to combine blistering sounds both old and new to create an original experience that only NIN can provide.

Despite the relatively short listen (clocking in at around 43 minutes), the album works as a whole. It functions as a reminder that it is always best to leave the people wanting more. The brilliance of the record is that despite its free price tag, the music never suffers or feels cheap. This is a quality release from one of the most revolutionary acts we've seen, and anyone with a working Internet connection owes it to themselves to go out and listen to this album.

With a physical release of the disc in July, as well as a slew of downloading bitrates, NIN seems to have every one of us in mind. In an industry poisoned by diva syndrome and cruel copycats, it's exciting to witness artists truly giving back to the people. In the words of Trent Reznor, “This one's on me.”