Like its namesake, Ghosts I-IV appeared out of nowhere, suddenly manifesting on nin.com with little advance warning. 36 tracks of ambient instrumentals, it’s exactly the kind of anti-commercial labor of love Trent Reznor’s been hinting at in his mounting criticism of the recording industry’s strangehold on artists and their creations. To that end, he’s put […]

Before its release, much had been written about Year Zero as a concept album: the anti-Bush/1984 storyline; the intricate alternate-reality-game’s online narrative; even how spectral analysis of certain soundbursts produce the cover’s bizarre Hand of God image. All cool stuff, but I’m more interested in how the music’s evolved. Since the days of The Fragile, […]