It's hard, really, to describe the sound of a Nine Inch Nails album. Explosive yet strange, distorted guitar and bass riffs, harsh electronic drum beats and a mix of experimental effects accompanied by a haunting, growling voice would be a start, but it barely begins to give you an idea of how it really sounds. There is no doubting the fact that it sounds strangely clever and well-thought out, particularly on Trent Reznor's latest exploration, 'Year Zero'.

The campaigning for this has been beyond astounding, with huge conspiracies of a corrupted American society ('I let you put it in my mouth / I let it get under my skin / I let you pump it through my veins / I let you take me from within' - Vessel) and governmental pollution ('You'll put on this blindfold / You'll do what we tell you' - Meet Your Master). To say the theories are complicated is somewhat an understatement, but with ideas flying between hundreds of thousands of fans, you know it has to be massive. What we have is, indeed, massive; a concept CD set to boast some of Reznor's most impressive songwriting skills, some of the funkiest songs you will hear from NiN and plenty of concepts to keep you thinking, all laid out in 16 tracks.

The obscure industrial sound will never appeal hugely to the masses, but other than single 'The Hand That Feeds' from their previous album, this album is possibly the closest that Nine Inch Nails could get to being mainstream. While most of the songs retain the obscure sound, there are some more funky riffs shining through in songs such as 'Capital G', 'God Given' and 'Meet Your Master'.

The level of ability in Reznor's songwriting has been turned up a notch, and being Trent Reznor, he has experimented with even more sounds than ever, bringing out a new series of talent. It's not so much the music I like, but the intelligence and ability that has been thrown into this CD is something to be treasured.