Tron: Ares. Music by Nine Inch Nails (2025)
I realised after making the Hesitation Marks (2013) post that I didn't want any of the really crap Nine Inch Nails releases on my main blog. That meant I didn't write anything about Not The Actual Events (2016), Add Violence (2017), Bad Witch (2018), or Ghosts V + VI (2020), all of which made me sigh for having dared hope they might take NIN back to its former glory.
Tron: Ares' first single, As Alive as You Need Me to Be, had a definite Fragile (1999) / With Teeth (2005) vibe, which gave me hope once again... but the end result was the same. I hoped. I bought. I sighed. [1]
But mostly I'm confused about why it even has the NIN moniker. With just a few exceptions, including As Alive as You Need Me to Be, it resembles a typical Reznor + Ross film score, which for me is something best summed up as lifeless, dull, musical enervation.
