Nine Inch Nails : TRON: Ares Soundtrack

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have made themselves one hell of a post-NIN career in film scoring. That’s not to say that Nine Inch Nails is retired, as Reznor’s industrial rock band is still very much among the living. But since Reznor and Ross began their film scoring career back in 2010 with David Fincher’s The Social Network, NIN content has diminished slightly. Besides 2013s Hesitation Marks and EPs Not The Actual Events, Add Violence, and Bad Witch released between 2016 and 2018, the only other albums released as NIN was in 2020 with Ghosts V: Together and Ghosts VI: Locusts. And those were instrumental albums that felt very much like film scores.

Their film work has become expansive, even surpassing Nine Inch Nails’ discography at 20 films and counting. But on their 21st film score Reznor and Ross are working under the NIN moniker. Tron: Ares has the honor of being scored by Nine Inch Nails. It is still mostly instrumental score work, but as if The Nine Inch Nails from Watchmen fame have come out of retirement once again to give us a few more industrial/electronic nuggets for our ears. This is a stunning piece of work, whether as the score to a new Tron movie, or just Reznor and Ross having fun playing chromed-out hard electronic music indebted to Giorgio Moroder and Kraftwerk.

What do you get on the Tron: Ares soundtrack? You get a handful of new NIN songs with Reznor giving some solid vocal turns, as well as some of the best electronic instrumental pieces since their work on The Social Network. Engaging, catchy, and dramatic pieces that sit well with the new vocal tracks. “Init” sounds like Trentemøller’s work for Halt and Catch Fire, while “Forked Reality” has a Vangelis quality to it. Single “As Alive As You Need Me To Be” sounds like a spruced up version of “Head Like A Hole”, with Reznor’s vocals strong and up front. Top tier NIN? Maybe not, but it still hits.

There’s quiet moments like “Echoes” and the melancholy beauty of “100% Expendable”, while “In The Image Of” is as grand as anything they’ve done before. “I Know You Can Feel” has a low key groove to it with vocals that sound whispered under the surface. “Who Wants To Live Forever?”, while not a reworking of Queen, is a stunning, melodramatic ballad with Spanish singer Judeline singing as well.

While this score is released and attributed to NIN, this is still a Reznor/Ross album. They’ve been the whole of NIN for over 15 years now, with the exception of live shows. The handful of “vocal” songs are a welcome surprise, but the star of this score is the actual score which is Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ most vital in years.