It is rather shocking. I mean, first it was 5 years, then 5 more years, then 6 years. To what am I referring? The time between Nine Inch Nails albums. Ok, so the almost-album EP Broken was sandwiched between Pretty Hate Machine and The Downward Spiral, and the double album The Fragile could almost count as two, but there is still a pronounced deliberate release pattern here. So deliberate that I am unaware of any other music artist committing what many would call career suicide. The obvious comparison in the film world is Stanley Kubrick, though he was halfway productive early on in his career.
I can remember waiting, waiting, waiting for the next release after TDS. When I think about the years of school that passed by, it really becomes a long wait. During this last tour, Trent continually referred to work progressing on a new album. I never would have thought that it would already be done, less than 2 years after the release of With Teeth. Especially since much of that 2 years was taken up by touring. Mixing will be done on the release in January, and European tour dates have already been announced for February and March. The new release (no name yet) will probably be out in April or early May. I would say that I can't wait, but history says that I can.
Two dates on the arena tour last spring were recorded using high definition cameras. That concert footage will be coming out on high definition discs sometime in early 2007. The trailer is available here. Scroll down to the 09/23/06 entry. It looks stunning.
