Nine Inch Nails "Year Zero" concept expands online

The storyline behind the upcoming Nine Inch Nails album, Year Zero, continues to expand online, with the newest web site going live on Thursday, February 22nd. The site, artisresistance.com, provides "resisters," and we assume Nine Inch Nails fans as well, with desktop backgrounds, AIM icons, stickers, posters, and numerous other ways to advertise the album -- sorry, spread the resistance. Year Zero, which is due out on April 17th, takes place in the year 2022, when the U.S. has been taken over by a fanatical religious government that may be putting drugs in the nation's water supply while citizens are seeing visions of a giant hand reaching down from the sky that is called "the Presence."

Other web sites that tie into the concept include Iamtryingtobelieve.com, anotherversionofthetruth.com, bethehammer.net and uswiretap.com.

One web site, however, was mistakenly thought to be part of the project. According to RollingStone.com, the owner of InThisTwilight.com posted a request at a NIN message board asking people to leave him alone after fans began trying to find information about him. "In This Twilight" is the name of a song on Year Zero.

Clues about the sites, as well as songs from the album, have been found on computer drives left in venue bathrooms on the band's current European tour.

The first official single from Year Zero, "Survivalism," arrived at rock radio stations this week.

Nine Inch Nails also releases a concert DVD called Beside You In Time on Tuesday (February 27th).