"Tron: Ares" Soundtrack | Nine Inch Nails: Detached from Simulation

Nine Inch Nails have taken an astonishing turn as a band. It all started with the stunning albums "Pretty Hate Machine," the EP "Broken," and above all, "The Downward Spiral." This music captured and made bearable the teenage angst, adolescent despair, and glamour of depression of the 90s by imbuing it all with a beautiful, broken sheen. Trent Reznor, singer, composer, and sound designer of this one-man project (calling it a "band" doesn't quite do it justice), combined all of this with then-innovative sounds, unsettling noise, and sprawling song structures. "The Downward Spiral" is an overflowing wellspring of musical ideas, unleashed upon the world by an artist at the height of his powers—at just 27 years old.

After that, things went downhill, and when the soundtrack to a rather uninspiring film like "Tron: Ares" is released today, it doesn't automatically elicit enthusiasm. "The Fragile" was still great, but after that, Nine Inch Nails' albums became increasingly bland and seemed as if they had lost touch with what was happening in electronic music. Trent Reznor seemed to have noticed the fading of his own work and in recent years has primarily released soundtracks, often in collaboration with fellow Nine Inch Nails member Atticus Ross.

Freed from the constraints of having to feign youthful despair as a wealthy man in his forties, and in tension with the images, something was set in motion again. The techno score that Reznor wrote for "Challengers," and the fragile soundtrack to "Queer," released shortly afterward and both by Luca Guadagnino, are among the best film scores of recent years.

For the Disney franchise "Tron," Reznor has resurrected the old project name. And there's singing again, too. The revival was a suggestion from Disney, Reznor explained in an interview. This gave him the freedom to conceive the soundtrack not as a score, but as a band album. The result is disparate. Songs intended as electro anthems, such as "As Alive As You Need Me To Be" or "I Know You Can Feel It," sound as thin and formulaic as most of what has recently been released under the name Nine Inch Nails.

The album truly shines when Trent Reznor blends the 80s aesthetic, a staple of the franchise since the first "Tron" film in 1982, with more recent sound designs. This is especially true when the synth-futurism of 40 years ago, complete with its subtle dissonances, collides with the electronic thunder of today's filters and laptops. Short synthesizer tracks like "100% Expendable" and "Building Better Worlds" sound somewhat like an orchestral version of Oneohtrix Point Never's time-travel ambient soundscapes and also reference the music of avant-garde composer Wendy Carlos, whose soundtrack lent the original film a sublime, avant-garde sheen.

This blend of eras works beautifully time and again. And the fate of Nine Inch Nails no longer lies in creating immediately emotionally intense pop songs, but in beautiful commissioned work.

Nine Inch Nails: Tron: Ares (Interscope/Universal Music)