Like many ostensibly indispensable pillars of rock and roll, the concept album has gone from revolutionary to quaint. The idea behind album-spanning narrative helped shift the focus away from hits to a working whole, but the concept album as rock’s highest datum is as antiquated as a backwards guitar solo.

The answer, according to Trent Reznor, is not to retreat to disjointed singles, but to make a concept production that spans all available media, and in some disturbing ways has no previous equal. Nine Inch Nails’ new album, Year Zero, is only the capstone of an ominous world that Reznor has invented and released in upsetting vignettes, images and sound bytes that hint at a future to make ‘Brave New World’ read like ‘Charlotte’s Web’.

These ‘clues’ so far have been dispersed throughout the internet, stemming from the band’s website, YouTube, and also from jump drives ‘accidentally’ left behind in restrooms throughout Europe, for starters. With no accompanying explanation or context, these could just as easily be moments of horror happening right now, though they are, according to various sources, stolen scenes from the year 2022. None of them - grainy videos, wiretaps, scrambled codes - make any sense by themselves, or even taken as a whole except to paint a woeful image of what’s in store for us at the hands of terrorists, a government run by religious fundamentalists, and slowly-eroding rights and protections that disappear unnoticed. It is all so disturbing because, without explanation, they may not be marketing ploys, but your sister’s last words from the trunk of a car.

Just like the collection of glimpses so far released, the album draws strength from its sense of inevitability. Lately, we’ve been momentarily incensed by unwarranted phone taps, and occasionally bothered enough to bitch about surveillance of public spaces, all of which continue to haunt us unimpeded, which Reznor reminds us in ‘My Violent Heart’, adding that there are no plans to stop these intrusions. Year Zero effectively states its case and sticks to it - it is not a possible future that can be altered by doubling your clerk’s salary and taking a vested interest in his crippled son, but one that will come to pass by unstoppable wheels have been put in motion. Ugly.

Cementing all of these fragments is some of Trent Reznor’s best music since The Downward Spiral. Following the trajectory of his past two albums, Reznor has moved from the blistering machine-gun fury and despair of his first three efforts (and particularly Broken) into a more rhythmic and strangely hook-laden direction that is no less marauding. Most unusual is the use of noise and anti-melody to fill in spots where convention places guitar solos or bridges. The sonic confusion mirrors the narrative and puts white noise where musical interludes usually belong, not unlike headlines about a single culprit claiming responsibility for every act of terror since 9-11 to strategically distract us from the more plausible scandal surrounding the U.S. Attorney General.

There are some weaknesses. Reznor’s frustration is a little overbearing in ‘Capital G’ when he sings about politicians who, “used to believe in something, now I forgot what that could be.” We’ve heard that 100 times before (which, at least, he admits as such), but that’s because they’re the words of a politician - not remarkable lyrics, but thematically appropriate. Where he succeeds - which he does for most of the album - is in a mastery of dynamics, and haunting sensitivity, like on the album’s closeing twofer ‘In This Twilight’ and ‘Zero-sum’, which sound like the survivors of a ruined society trying to recall an old symphony that’s been banned or forgotten.

If eschatology and conspiracy theoretics aren’t your thing, then the music on Year Zero - some of NIN’s best in years - may still draw you in. I was surprised to have a great deal of it stuck in my head, which is surprising given that it is the soundtrack to the disintegration of civilization. But just as Reznor adroitly employs the latest technology to sonically replicate the most human senses of fear and despair, so does his apocalypse have a toe-tapping beat.

Like a good novelist or playwright, Reznor doesn’t necessarily need to know what he’s writing about – he just needs to make you think he does; taking him and his fatalistic view seriously is not required to be affected by it. It is not as concerned with preparing us for scheduled misery and oppression, but with holding a gory meditation on what it would be like were it to occur. But just in case he’s right, I hope I die of old age before the terrorists, or the Thought Police come to git me.

Release date: 4-17-07
Label: Interscope
Rating: 8.5/10
Recommended prep material: ‘Jesus Camp‘, 1984, The Book of Revelation, Zoloft

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