A perfect little stream

brilliantology:

Nine Inch Nails - Lights In The Sky

Track 7 on the new free album The Slip reminds me of albums Still and certain parts of The Fragile. Barely audible vocals and the loud, lonely, piano… It’s a thing of beauty.

Unfortunately, having listened to it a fair few times since it was released, The Slip itself isn’t great. It’s not a cohesive album, more a loose collection of songs that sound like they didn’t make it into the last few commercial releases. Still, there are gems there (Discipline, Echoplex, Corona Radiata and Lights In The Sky in particular) and I’ve found my key to enjoying them all is to tweak my NIN playlists so these songs slot in alongside tracks of similar feel.

I can’t really complain though - it’s free!

 I really have to agree on all points. Slip is like the filler between Year Zero and the third iteration. It seems like part 2 of 3 in a trilogy where you push the story along, introduce some worthless characters and move on to the finale.

That being said, Lights In The Sky is now part of a playlist with the two Zero Sum versions (from YZ and the YZ remix disc), A Warm Place, and a couple instrumental cuts from various NIN releases. It’s a gloriously minimilistic and warm sounding set of tunes.