Trent Reznor usually keeps his highbrow Oscar-winning soundtrack composer side relatively separate from his main gig running Nine Inch Nails . But the soundtrack he and longtime collaborator Atticus Ross have cooked up for TRON: Ares is the first time he’s ever slapped the NIN brand on his film work. The new album, the first Nine Inch Nails record in five years, finds Reznor elbow-deep in all his favorite bags: Eighties synth bellyaching, industrial-rock violence, metal machine minimalism, wintry piano miniatures, the second side of David Bowie’s Low , and the sweatiest corner of the all-ages goth club .

Of the 24 songs here, we get four with Reznor’s vocals. “As Alive As You Need Me to Be” is pure old-school Nine Inch Nails black gold — scabrous dark-sider gear grind and Reznor

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