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Year Zero

Nine Inch Nails

nine inch nails

Year Zero

Interscope, 2007

Trent Reznor is hot pissed, and this time he actually has a lot to be irate about. Year Zero is probably the first post-Katrina album, if there exists such a sub-subgenre—it’s apparent that the tragedy in New Orleans had a profound effect on the making of this disc. The pretty hate machine no longer sounds "pretty", its wires fried and short-circuiting and its engineer standing on the edge of sanity in a world even less sane.

It’s a concept record, though it’s not as gutwrenching of a listen as The Downward Spiral tends to be nowadays. It’s heavy but less internal. This is the sound of a man who is speaking for the people of a damaged world moreso than himself, and that in itself is a refreshing change (for all Year Zero’s fatalism, George Orwell would be proud). The contrast in sounds is even more drastic this time around—muted synth sounds clash with glitchy rhythm, often with Trent’s voice serving as an instrument just as much as a focal point. "The Greater Good" is a perfect example of the latter. It’s also important to note that guitars often take a backseat on this record (hell, the bass in "The Warning" practically carries that song most of the way through) and thus this album is not quite as muscular as 2005’s _With Teeth_. If you’re looking for balls-out rock, this is not the disc for you.

What Year Zero is, though, is probably the best nine inch nails record in 13 years.

The Devil His Due

Chris Randall

Chris Randall

The Devil His Due

Positron Records, 2007

Chris Randall made a name for himself in the Chicago music scene as the leader of Sister Machine Gun, a group that took industrial abrasion and hard rock and married them far better than nearly everyone else in the game. Then, a couple of years ago, he packed up and moved to Oregon and took a 180 toward more organic music. The Devil His Due is the result.

Make no mistake, the breathy gravelly voice is unchanged, but it finds itself in more complimentary territory. His voice makes hair bristle on "Sin Eater", while on his cover of "St. James Infirmary Blues" his weary croon sells the song with ease. The guitar work on this album, courtesy of Chris and former SMG conspirator Miguel Turanzas, is blistering and possibly some of the best blues work the genre has seen in some time. It’s also worth noting that the drums sound fantastic on Devil – if you close your eyes to listen it almost seems you’re in the room with the songs as they play out. Chris’s art-noir approach to roots music and subsequent execution puts him in the same neighborhood as Nick Cave and Matt Johnson’s The The in its Dusk-era.

As has always been the case with Chris’s music, it’s best to let the songs speak for themselves. It's guaranteed that one listen to The Devil His Due will reinforce this, as words can’t really do it justice. Without a doubt, this is the best thing he’s ever done.

--Jack Alberson