In other news, Trent Reznor continues to be an awesome dude.

Back in July, Mr. Self-Destruct himself announced that he and his longtime collaborator, Atticus Ross, would be scoring David Fincher’s new film, The Social Network; now they’re taking pre-orders for that score (in a variety of formats, natch), and, at the same site, giving away five songs for free if you’re willing to hand over your e-mail address.

A statement from Reznor regarding the subject reads as follows:

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Back in July we found out that Trent Reznor and his longtime collaborator, Atticus Ross, were composing the score for the upcoming, completely awesome-looking drama, The Social Network; now the movie’s website is live, and there’s some weird, ambient, uh… well, it’s more like buzzing than music, but I know that some people are speculating that it’s part of Reznor and Ross’ contribution to the film. And while we can’t confirm this just yet, it certainly sounds like something Reznor might do. And if it is part of the score for the film, well… holy shit. I guess Reznor wasn’t kidding when he said that the film was really “dark.”

Check it out here and let us know what you think. The Social Network opens October 1 in the U.S.

-AR

[via C.H.U.D.]

A lot of people think that the work of Aaron Sorkin is too treacly and stylized, and while I certainly understand that complaint, I tend think that, overrall, he’s one of the most entertaining (and certainly one of the most distinctive) writers out there these days. Everyone and their mother can quote A Few Good Men, Sports Night was one of the best series ever to get prematurely cancelled by a stupid network, and The West Wing won a shit ton of accolades for a reason. Sure, Studio 60 and Charlie Wilson’s War were a little on the meh side, but his 2007 Broadway play, The Farnsworth Invention, was engrossing and educational.

The Social Network, Sorkin’s script about the creation of Facebook, made The Blacklist (a Hollywood compilation of the most-read and most-enjoyed unproduced screenplays) a couple of years back, and the announcement that David Fincher — he of Seven, Fight Club, Zodiac, and Benjamin Button fame (to name but a few) — was going to direct the film was certainly reason to get excited about it.

More reason to get excited: Trent Reznor has announced that he’s been hired to score the film. From the official NIN website:

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That might be a misleading headline, and I apologize if you came here thinking you were gonna see news of live dates for How to Destroy Angels. Actually, just the opposite – The PRP reports that during a recent online fan Q&A, HTDA  announced that they “have no plans to tour in the immediate future and will instead be focusing on their full-length effort which is expected out early next year.”

Which is news that I’m actually okay with. For one thing, it doesn’t say they’ll never tour – just not right now. For another thing, it means they’re working on new music, and even though their EP just came out this week, I could certainly stand to hear even more. And, finally, there’s the fact that the idea of a HTDA live show just doesn’t really get me that excited. Not that I don’t like them – I obviously do – but other than Trent’s usual sweet live light show, I can’t really see this group being all that exciting in a concert setting. It’s obviously very technology-driven music, and in the past I’ve found shows where most or all of the people on stage are playing synths and computers to get kinda tedious after awhile. Of course, I would go see HTDA live and hope I was completely wrong about that – and those aforementioned Trent light shows are always 110% kick-ass – I’m just saying, if I don’t attend a HTDA concert before 2011 or whenever, I’m not gonna bang my head against the wall.

The above photo is from the shoot for the video of “The Space in Between,” by the way, and you can check out more here.

-AR

I know I mentioned this on Friday, but I also know that a lot of you spent the last three days destroying a vast percentage of your brain, so I just wanted to remind you: as of today, the debut self-titled EP from How to Destroy Angels – a.k.a. “Trent Reznor’s new project with his wife” – is available for free download.

As we’ve been saying all along, it’s basically Nine Inch Nails with female vocals – which isn’t a bad thing. The sad news is that the group has already released half the tracks in some form or another, and, unfortunately, I think we’ve already heard the album’s best material. That’s not to say I don’t like the remaining songs; I had just hoped that HTDA had some ace up their sleeve that they were waiting to unveil. But nothing really tops “A Drowning” and “The Space in Between.”

Of course, you may very vocally disagree with me, as is your right to do so; and one way or the other, the album is free, so you really have nothing to lose by at least checking it out. Download it here.

-AR

I will switch teams for Trent Reznor right now and I don’t care who knows it. He really is just making a strong play for the title of “Coolest Dude EVER.”

It was exactly a month ago today that we first heard about How to Destroy Angels, Renzor’s new project with his wife, Mariqueen Maandig, and frequent Nine Inch Nails collaborator Atticus Ross; and it was just a few days ago that we heard that the group’s debut EP would be coming out July 6. Well, that release date either only applies to physical copies of the album, or has been scrapped, or was never real to begin with, ’cause now HTDA have announced that they will be GIVING THE EP AWAY FOR FREE in 320 kbps mp3s THIS TUESDAY, June 1. If you “pre-order” the album right now – pre-ordering in this instance basically amounting to joining an e-mail list – you can download a new song, “The Believers,” right now.

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Photo credit: EmpyreLounge.com

My interview with Coheed & Cambria guitarist Travis Stever got off to a bit of a slow start. I believe I was his first interview of the morning in a long line of many, and he was audibly a bit groggy after a rough night of sleep on the bus. But after a few questions Stever got into the flow of things, and started talking at length about his band’s new record Year of the Black Rainbow, their current tour with Circa Survive and Torche, working with ex-Dillinger Escape Plan drummer Chris Pennie, the Neverender series of shows and the thrill of playing Madison Square Garden.

We only had fifteen minutes to talk before Stever was whisked away to his next interview, but we got plenty accomplished in that time. Our chat, after the jump.

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I don’t think that Nine Inch Nails have ever made a bad video, and Trent Reznor isn’t about to start now – the new clip for How to Destroy Angels’ “The Space in Between” is provocative, possibly pretentious, morbidly beautiful, and wholly memorable (which is really the entire point of a music video, I suppose). Insofar as what the video “means,” well… I’m not entirely sure I know. Assuming the titular “in between” is some kind of purgatorial state, well… I guess we can interpret the fact that Reznor and his wife/vocalist Mariqueen Maandig are lip synching while clearly “deceased” as being somehow related to said purgatorial state. I’ll have to ponder it some more, though.

Whatever the heck the video is supposed to mean, it is, like I said, morbidly beautiful, and the song is gorgeous. As with “A Drowning,” it pretty much sounds like NIN with a female vocalist… but I have absolutely no problem with that.

HTDA will release a six-song EP sometime this summer. Longtime NIN collaborator Atticus Ross is also involved in some capacity; he’s the dude smoking a cigarette and watching T.V. in this video.

-AR

It was just last week that we first heard about How to Destroy Angels, the new outfit from Trent Reznor and his wife, Mariqueen Maandig; and now here we are, and Pitchfuck already has the group’s debut song, “A Drowning.”

So what do we think? Personally, I fucking love this song. I predicted that HTDA would “sound more or less like late-era NIN,” and it does; swap out Maandig’s vocals for Reznor’s, and this basically sounds like a hybrid of “All the Love in the World” and “The Line Begins to Blur” from With Teeth.

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