Trent Reznor has always taken the presentation of his projects seriously, once creating an entire alternate universe to market Nine Inch Nails' 2007 album Year Zero (there's a whole glossary). So even though the band's recent EP Not the Actual Events was released in a fairly low-key fashion online, its just-shipped physical edition has a few fans surprised and, bizarrely, super-stoked. Strewn among pieces of artwork is a mysterious black powder, mostly discovered after smearing unsuspecting hands.
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If you're wondering why everyone seems so jazzed, well, NIN has some weird fans. The lengthy note on the EP's front ominously promises that "actions have consequences," so it'd be understandable if anyone thought they'd just opened a packet of anthrax or somesuch viral agent. Has the Bush-era replaced the early Cold War as the most artistically viable age of paranoia to draw from? Maybe the present is just too scary and nostalgia for previous scary times is in demand. This got dark, so let's end with that video of young NIN delightfully miming "Down in It" for 80s teens.Phil is the least weird NIN fan. He's on Twitter.