Nine Inch Nails giving fans \'The Slip on new album

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Nine Inch Nails
The Slip
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Trent Reznor hasn’t lost his bite, but he is findingdifferent ways to chew his food. The Slip , which is more subdued than much of NIN’s catalog, comesright on the heels of the instrumental Ghosts I-IV . The disc kicks off with 1,000,000 , its best rocker. The track sports a vicious live drumbeat thatsounds more garage rock than industrial. Singles Discipline and Echoplex have some kick but seem a little diluted, or at least bettersuited for a concert setting. A word of warning: After a loudstart, the last couple tracks are a blur of ambient instrumentals,before the last hurrah of Demon Seed .
Download this: 1,000,000
—Ryan Peterson
The Presets
Apocalypso
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What’s up with the Aussies getting all electro? Cut Copyreleased one of the year’s most sublime electro-pop discs andnow come The Presets with a darker, heavier sound that recallsDepeche Mode, Soft Cell, early Nine Inch Nails, and very early,pre- True Spandau Ballet. The sound’s not strikingly original but thisduo does it well, coming up with memorable hooks and selling themwith Julian Hamilton’s energetic vocals. Tracks such as Yippiyo- ay , Talk Like That, and the closing, wall-thumping, house-influenced Anywhere sound like a really good night out in 1983, and there’snothing wrong with that.
Download this : Yippiyo-ay
—Cary Darling
Black Kids
Partie Traumatic
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The Black Kids are, with their debut album, have taken everythingmodern and relevant — from Killers-esque vocals to non-retrosynth work — and rolled it into one of the best albums of theyear without a sour track in sight. Part of the appeal of the BlackKids’ approach is that they nail the technical delivery ofeach song on all fronts. The vocals, for the most part, sound likeThe Cure’s Robert Smith on helium. If the music wasunderstated, it wouldn’t work as well, but the songs have ahabit of coming to a crescendo nicely and giving lead singer ReggieYoungblood a platform on which to soar.
Download this: Love Me Already
—Ron Harris, The Associated Press
CSS
Donkey
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Brazil’s Cansei De Ser Sexy (or CSS for short) got a massiveboost when Apple placed Music is My Hot Hot Sex from the group’s 2005 debut in its iPod Touch commercials.Fortunately, the group hasn’t grown cold over the past threeyears. Donkey retains that album’s electro-pop charm with a tracklisttailor-made for the hippest night spots. Let’s Reggae All Night has a funky-trashy Prince vibe and Left Behind is what New Wave in the '80s should have sounded like. And if anyshoe companies are reading, you might want to option thedisc’s lead-off track Jager Yoga for your new sneaker commercial.
Download this: Left Behind
—Ryan Peterson
Various artists
Big Blue Ball
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Between 1991 and 1995, Peter Gabriel hosted a trio of "recordingweeks" at his England studios that fostered collaborativeenvironments for artists from around the world. The tapes fromthose sessions fell into disarray until producer Stephen Haguerecently sorted out and completed selected pieces under the title Big Blue Ball . The results are snapshots of a colorful landscape, an array ofrich sonic patchworks from a palette so diverse that they areexotic to every ear. The confluence of French, American, Irish andCongolese influences melds diverse elements into organic, excitingfinished pieces.
Download this: Everything Comes From You
—Thomas Kintner, the Hartford Courant