The Slip - Nine Inch Nails
Metascore
78 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 11 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 11
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 11
  3. Negative: 0 out of 11
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  1. New Musical Express (NME)
    70
    The album itself follows the thread started on 2005’s "With Teeth," which is to say Reznor’s again favouring songs over soundscapes.
  2. Drowned In Sound
    70
    Four albums in thirteen months may have led to a case of familiarity breeding contempt, but it still feels like the first half of this album is treading water from a songwriting point of view. The second half is a fine musical journey, and if this were a vinyl record (it soon will be) then maybe you'd just put side two on repeatedly.
  3. Pitchfork
    75
    Instead of a symbolic death, The Slip feels much more like a possible rebirth.
  4. All Music Guide
    80
    Here, he's no longer a stylized, self-conscious innovator, he's a working musician enraptured by making music, and he's so invigorated by creation it's hard not to get sucked in as well.
  5. Rolling Stone
    80
    For listeners who like their music loud and fierce and pissed off at just about everything, there aren't too many better options than The Slip. Plus, the price is right.
  6. Spin
    80
    The Slip is primo death funk, with Reznor seething seductively about skies fading to black over grinding soundscapes that perfectly split the difference between computer-music clarity and live-band grit.
  7. Slant Magazine
    50
    Individual songs on The Slip aren't particularly dynamic; the album has two levels: loud and soft.
  8. Delusions of Adequacy
    80
    All in all this is a great album.
  9. PopMatters
    70
    While the music may look backward, the way it has been released looks forward, to a far greater extent than Ghosts I-IV ever could have hoped.
  10. The A.V. Club
    75
    The hard-hitting early tracks '1,000,000,' 'Letting You,' and 'Discipline' are particularly good, though typical; Reznor keeps farming the same fertile ground that yielded The Slip's predecessors.
  11. Blender
    80
    It's 10 tightly wrapped wads of black bubblegum, not a politicized sci-fi fantasia like "year Zero" or a two-hour drift into instrumnetal blip 'n' grind like this spring's "Ghosts I-IV." [July 2008, p.74]
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User Reviews

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User Score
8.5 out of 10

Universal acclaim- based on 61 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 22 out of 24
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 24
  3. Negative: 0 out of 24
  1. IanS.
    10
    Quite simply a superb album. The top album of the year in my opinion.
  2. JohnS.
    10
    The album brings all of the best parts of previous released together.
  3. j30
    7
    It has it's highs and lows, volume and quality wise. None of the songs hit rock bottom, they kind of hover above mediocrity. Echoplex is one of the best songs Trent Reznor has written, but other than that the rest kind of blends into just another solid album.… Full Review »
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