Nine Inch Nails is circumventing the standard marketing of a new studio album and is instead offering it on a silver plate, almost literally. As of Monday, April 5, “The Slip” is available for free downloading on the band’s official website.

Nine Inch Nails has decided to offer fans a special treat in the form of a brand new studio album they can download at no cost whatsoever from the band’s website.

The invitation is simple and laconic. “Click HERE to get the new full-length Nine Inch Nails record: The Slip,” followed by a slightly emotional parenthesis from frontman Trent Reznor: “(thank you for your continued and loyal support over the years - this one's on me).”

The ten-track album is available in several formats, including high-quality MP3, FLAC or M4A lossless at CD quality and even higher-than-CD quality 24/96 WAVE. All downloads include a PDF with artwork and credits.

The albums’ tracks are as follows: “999,999,” “1,000,000,” “Letting You,” “Discipline,” “Echoplex,” “Head Down,” “Lights In The Sky,” “Corona Radiate,” “The Four Of Us Are Dying,” “Demon Seed.”

Another message on the site reads, “The Slip is licensed under a creative commons attribution non-commercial share alike license. We encourage you to remix it, share it with your friends, post it on your blog, play it on your podcast, give it to strangers, etc.”

Nine Inch Nails intends to release “The Slip” on CD and vinyl in July, through traditional distribution. Further details about the physical product have yet to be announced.

Manager Jim Guerinot told Billboard.com that giving the album away for free was in synchronicity with an upcoming tour the band is planning. “We just put a record out [and] we're going on-sale with tickets,” he said, adding that Reznor has “been in a prolific phase and we didn’t want ‘business’ to get in the way of getting the art in the hands of the fans. We’ve looked at the climate and the many advantages of being able to do whatever we want without bureaucracy.”

Reznor was bursting with pride and satisfaction last fall upon announcing the band’s new status of “totally free agent,” after its contract with Interscope had ended.

“As of right now Nine Inch Nails is a totally free agent, free of any recording contract with any label. I have been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently very different,” he wrote at the time on the site.

“It gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate.”

He is obviously acting out on his wishes.