NINE INCH NAILS has set "Year Zero" as the title of its new album, which is due out in April and follows up 2005's "With Teeth". "It could be about the end of the world," the band's mastermind Trent Reznor wrote on the official NIN fan club web site The Spiral.

In a recent interview with England's Kerrang! magazine, Reznor described the upcoming album's as "a collage of sound type of thing, not heavy in a metal guitar kind of way." He added, "With this record I feel a lot less concerned about what people think about it — especially the dying record industry. I couldn't care less about that right now." Reznor also revealed that the new effort is a concept album and "part of a bigger picture of a number of things I'm working on. Essentially I wrote the soundtrack to a movie that doesn't exist."

Reznor said that most of the album was recorded "in hotel rooms around the world on laptops," with very few musicians beside himself and "maybe some surprise vocalists that pop up here and there."

When asked why the new record took less than two years to arrive when the last one took six, Reznor said, "I'm probably as surprised as some fans are (laughs). But really it's just a matter of discipline. When I was on the last tour, to keep myself busy I was just really hunkered down and was working on music the whole time, so this kept me in a creative mode and when I finished the tour I felt like I wasn't tired and wanted to keep at it."

NINE INCH NAILS will release a DVD called "Beside You In Time" on February 27. The disc documents the band's tour in support of "With Teeth".

(Thanks: Adam Swartz)