This is a continuation of Monday’s post regarding the new NIne Inch Nails release Ghosts I-IV. I finally got around to ordering the album by 8p.m. Monday evening which is right around the time that the site went down. I managed to place my order and after getting my confirmation email and download link I selected my file format and when I hit download… Nothing, just a “can’t connect to server” message. After a few minutes This message popped up on the site:

Unfortunately, the Ghosts I-IV site is down for the next few hours for maintenance.

We quietly released this album last night without any warning, and without any press. Because we know how devoted our fans are, we planned for an overwhelming response, and expected heavy traffic. To our surprise, the traffic was more than three times what we anticipated, and has only been getting heavier throughout the day. The response has been absolutely phenomenal, and we couldn’t be happier, but our servers have taken a beating, causing numerous problems with the download site. Our developers, who have been working non-stop to combat the surge of traffic, feel that taking the site down for a few hours to fix some crucial issues is the best way to get things running smoothly again. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.

While the site is down, you can still purchase the complete Ghosts I-IV here from Amazon’s MP3 store for only $5. The MP3s are high quality and DRM-free. You can also order the deluxe and limited edition packages from Artist in Residence.

If you’re familiar with BitTorrent, you can download Ghosts I, the first of the four volumes, for free, from our official upload at The Pirate Bay.

If you ordered a download and have not yet been able to retrieve it or have experienced any technical difficulties with the download, your download link will work as soon as the site returns.

Thanks again for the amazing support, and your continuing patience. Watch nin.com for updates during the downtime.

So, that was a bummer, but I had a suspicion that this might happen. So I went on with my evening, which generally consisted of taking care of Ivy who has the sinus congestion Type-A flu that has been making the rounds. When I woke up Tuesday I hopped onto my computer and Hail Eris, the site was working and my purchase was downloading, slowly but surely.

So, after a couple listens I can confidently say that Ghosts is a great album. It’s all instrumental, which is fine for me. Seeing as how most of NIN’s appeal lies in the structure of the sound rather than entirely in lyrics. I’m not saying this to undermine Trent Reznor’s writing or singing ability, I think he has a great voice and the lyrics have always been poignant. Really though, if you are someone who is even remotely into industrial music—I know NIN isn’t industrial, whatever —then you are driven to it because of the quality of the music not because the lyrics are A+ material, which they often aren’t. When you look back over the span of NIN’s career and take note of how many remix albums they have produced you begin to see that the concept behind Ghosts was a natural evolution of their creative process. I for one would gladly take a instrumental album with previously unused material than another retread remix album with the same lyrics that I’ve already heard. That’s why I never really got into NIN’s remixes, it didn’t feel like I was getting something new.

Wow, that was a long drawn out path to actually talk about the super-awesomeness that is the Ghost albums. Keep in mind that this release is a collection of four pseudo-albums, hence Ghosts I-Iv. It’s 36 tracks in all, but each “album” seems to represent a section of the NIN timeline. They all have their own vibe that sets them apart from the rest. This makes it a little hard for me to describe the album as a whole. The simplest way to say it is that it sounds like Nine Inch Nails, especially Nails circa the year 2000 and beyond.

A lot of the tracks remind me of the instrumental pieces from Fragile. Soft elegant pieces with glitches, pops, distorted instruments and very subtle humming, moaning and breathing inner mixed throughout. While some tracks get heavy with grinding guitars they remain pretty down tempo, and easy to digest. For the most part these “albums” mesh into one another unless you are paying close attention.

The most obvious disconnect between albums is Ghost IV. Ghost IV is a lot harsher than the rest of the albums, it invokes aspects of Broken as well as some of the stuff from Year Zero. I really enjoyed this part because it bridged the gab in my mind between the NIN I loved in high school with the NIN of today.

Probably my favorite track so far is track 3 off of Ghost I, it has a very distinct Akira vibe to it, I suppose some people might make the argument that he ripped it off. I really don’t care either way, the punchy Japanese sounding drums and rhythmic breathing just get you going.

Finally, a brief note on the topic of Trent Reznor’s distribution model for this album. I would say that it was a complete success so far. As of now they have completely sold out of the $300 Ultra Deluxe package and I’m sure the rest of the collection has been flying out the door. In a way, I am glad that this album received higher than expected traffic to the point of shutting down the site. This only proves the validity of the Artist owned online distro method, and I hope to see more artists big and small jumping on the band wagon.