Nine Inch Nails kept their promise to fans, releasing their new EP just before the end of the year.
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, his longtime collaborator and “now official bandmate,” unleashed the five-song Not the Actual Events on Thursday (Dec. 22).
Reznor has called the follow-up to 2013’s Hesitation Marks “an unfriendly, fairly impenetrable record that we needed to make.”
The EP features the Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl, who drums on the track “The Idea of You.” Grohl previously appeared on NIN’s 2005 With Teeth. Guitarist Dave Navarro and Reznor’s wife and How to Destroy Angels bandmate, Mariqueen Maandig, also contributed to the project.
On the band’s website, Reznor shares his “Vinyl Mission Statement,” in which he encourages fans to “Grab a great set of headphones, sit with the vinyl, drop the needle, hold the jacket in your hands looking at the artwork (with your f—ing phone turned off) and go on a journey with me.”
Listen to Not the Actual Events below.
The EP’s final track, “Burning Bright (Field on Fire)”