Year Zero

Tanks rumble through the streets. The government oppresses the populace, the water is drugged, and Nine Inch Nails sings about it. "Year Zero," Trent Reznor's 2007 album, is nothing short of a breakthrough album, both in its marketing and its creation.

The songs mostly leave behind the heavy clanking industrial-metal of Reznor's earlier career and are some of the best and most accessible of Reznor's career. He gives up a metal sound for either a poppy dance feel or a sound which is quiet, but equally as unsettling as anything off of with teeth.

Unlike any of his previous albums, the songs of "Year Zero" have a very cohesive concept, one which can be better discovered by playing the Alternate Reality Game created by 42 Entertainment to accompany the album. These are all words that Trent has sung before, songs about paranoia, disconnection, feeling cut out or oppressed or angry, but now they are more than just words. Trent Reznor has entered the golden age of his career and now he his lyrics carry more than just words, but ideas!