Nine Inch Nails -- The Slip

7/10

Trent Reznor generously released The Slip for free on his website in June of 2008. The album feels like a return-to-form, a natural evolution of the rock band sound of 2005's With Teeth, instead of  the bloated garble of 2007's Year Zero. He even finds time for a piano ballad and an ambient track in the album's sparing run-time. Reznor also returns to his lyrical specialty, focusing on the fracturing stress in interpersonal relationships, as well as questions of consciousness. Unfortunately, though, that's all I have to say about The Slip.
Maybe it's because a more well-adjusted Reznor means less interesting music (FALSE, as the next review will show), or maybe The Slip's free-ness makes it feel more disposable.
Whatever the case, The Slip is a fun forty-four minutes that doesn't sound vital in the least.

2008 The Null Corporation
1. 999,999 1:25
2. 1,000,000 3:56
3. Letting You 3:49
4. Discipline 4:19
5. Echoplex 4:45
6. Head Down 4:55
7. Lights in the Sky 3:29
8. Corona Radiata 7:33
9. The Four of Us Are Dying 4:37
10. Demon Seed 4:59