If you are a Nine Inch Nails fan, you know there is always a remix album.  Year Zero’s could be the best remix album yet.  I would rate it second only to Further Down The Spiral.

Standout tracks include Gunshots By Computer, Saul Williams rapping/’speaking word’ over Hyperpower!, that’s really all I need to say about that one, of course it is great.  The Great Destroyer (Modwheelmood) is a reconstruction which I can best describe as taking the first verses of the original and expanding it out over an entire song, and making it sound, well, awesome.  The Beginning of the End is remixed by Ladytron, yes, Ladytron.  And the track delivers greatness, predictably.  Another Version of the Truth has been made even more epic by Kronos and Enrique Gonzalez Muller, they’ve added strings, painting an even more cinematic picture, and even more so, I don’t think I should ever use even more more then once in a sentence, but the song is so epic it called for such debauchery.  In This Twilight is remixed by Fennesz, whoever that is, he/she did a good job, it is explosive and transcendent.  And finally, Zero Sum, remixed by two other guys I’ve never heard of (Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert), is quite brilliant and powerful.  Trent’s whispered spoken word is more audible, and the song builds steadily layering synth hooks and pads one by one with a steady electronic pulsing drum. A simple arrangement that doesn’t exactly eclipse the original but delivers a new spin on the song.

Year Zero Remixed is solid.  There is one anomaly, a 14 minute version of Me, I’m Not, which is somewhat of a curiosity to me…  Olof Dreijer makes a strange, cosmic jungle, deconstruction, which is probably on the record more for the novelty of it than any other reason.  Also, The Faint’s remix of Meet Your Master, which I couldn’t wait to hear, seems a bit lazy and is a disappointment.

Rating:

New Wave, produced by Butch Vig, is one of my favorite albums of the year thus far. It’s a tight, focused 10 track rock n’ roll assault. Some fans may cry ’sell out’ and complain that the record is overproduced, missing the rawer sound of Reinventing Axl Rose. I find this major label debut is a promising indicator of things to come.
New Wave really grows on you, there are even some cuts that make you wanna move, as in, dance, and then there is other kinds of songs, that do other things. Ocean, for instance, is an amazing cut. It’ll make you wish you were born a woman (that is if you were born a man).
Rating: