Giving fans the slip

Sorry for that headline. The new Nine Inch Nails album dropped out of nowhere yesterday. Called "The Slip" it can be downloaded for free at nin.com. Much like the 4-volume instrumental Ghosts I-IV that became available in March, there was no warning or advance press.

You can get it in any one of four formats -- mp3, flac or Apple lossless, and super high quality WAV files. All you need is a valid e-mail address. The mp3 files are streamed, all the rest come as torrents.

There is a note on the web site from Reznor saying "Thank you for your continued and loyal support over the years — this one's on me." It's also got the old Creative Commons license, which means anyone can remix or use it anyway they want as long as they give credit. The web site encourages people to give it to their friends.

As far as the music itself -- it's pretty standard nin fare, at least since With Teeth. Hard rock/electronic beats, haunting piano ballads, along with the typical damn the man type lyrics.

Crazy how once Nine Inch Nails gets out from under a record label they release 5 albums in 3 months. No more waiting 5 years like between Downward Spiral and The Fragile that's for sure.