Nine Inch Nails Release Lead Single from Tron: Ares Soundtrack

When Disney announced industrial duo Nine Inch Nails would be scoring the third instalment of the cult sci-fi franchise Tron, we got a wee bit excited. The team of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross has had a full plate with scoring films, from Queer to Challengers to Halloween to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, so the news they were scoring under the NIN name was a surprise.

What would make this different to their usual film work? The NIN name hasn’t been used since their 2021 collaboration with HEALTH, though the band is currently on tour in Europe, so what is it about this project that brings the duo back to the Nine Inch Nails brand? With the launch of the new trailer for Tron: Ares we finally have an answer. Trent Reznor is back on vocals.

‍‘As Alive As You Need Me to Be’ is an electro heavy song that starts with an EDM beat (ala Challengers) before Reznor starts singing “The way it makes me feel, infection”. It's not like the traditional score music from Reznor & Ross, this is a certified NIN banger. The lyrics convey the perspective of an entity that slowly finds emotion. In a rarity for NIN, Reznor’s voice is filtered through a vocoder or auto tuner, giving him a robotic/AI presence as he reveals “I can finally feel”. Perhaps this is the viewpoint of Jared Leto’s Ares character, which the trailer depicts as a programmed soldier who takes control of his fate.

NIN.com promotes the physical (CD and vinyl) releases as having over 70 minutes of new music, including the singles 'As Alive As You Need Me to Be' and 'Who Wants to Live Forever'. Coincidentally, the latter shares a title with a Queen song, whom NIN have covered in the past.

Tron: Ares (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is out September 19, 2025.

Tron: Ares is out in Aussie cinemas October 9, 2025.

Words by KJ Draven @kjdraven