Released: 2025
Genres: Dark Ambient, Electro-Industrial, Synthwave
The Musiquarium’s Tron: Ares Review Score: 7.5 out of 10
While Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are no strangers to scoring films, having made the soundtracks for The Social Network, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Gone Girl, Mank and The Killer (and those are just the David Fincher films), NIN has never actually been credited for a full original soundtrack, having just released a couple of soundtrack songs (Burn for Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers and Perfect Drug for David Lynch’s Lost Highway).
Trons: Ares is primarily an instrumental album, though there are a few songs with vocals. Out of these four, the lead single, As Alive as You Need Me to Be, is probably the best and most memorable one, but I Know You Can Feel It and Shadow Over Me are decent NIN tracks too, and should hopefully satisfy fans that haven’t been able to enjoy a proper song with vocals from the band since 2018’s Bad Witch. There’s also a duet with singer Judeline, Who Wants to Live Forever?, which is definitely one of my less favourite NIN songs yet. As for the instrumental tracks, there’s a diverse mix of cyberpunk techno grooves, sparse piano ballads and ambient soundscapes.
Without having watched Tron: Ares, I can’t see how these songs work in their intended context, but as far as soundtracks go, it’s fairly diverse and interesting, ranging from cyberpunk techno grooves to sparse piano ballads, with a few vocal tracks for good measure.
Tron: Ares is supposed to be a terrible film, but at least the soundtrack is killer.
For credit breakdowns and historic release details, view Nine Inch Nails on Discogs.
Back to the 2026 Album Reviews Guide or the Nine Inch Nails Reviews page.
Written by Brett Nippard
Leave a Reply