Fifteen original tracks were considered for inclusion on the album, which Reznor described as "Highly conceptual. Quite noisy. Fucking cool." Reznor also described the album as a "collage of sound type of thing", citing musical inspiration from early Public Enemy records, specifically the production techniques of The Bomb Squad. Most of "Year Zero"s musical elements were created by Reznor solely on his laptop, as opposed to the instrument-heavy "With Teeth". AllMusic's review described the album's laptop-mixed sound: "guitars squall against glitches, beeps, pops, and blotches of blurry sonic attacks. Percussion looms large, distorted, organic, looped, screwed, spindled and broken." Many reviews of the album compared the album's electronic sound to earlier Nine Inch Nails releases such as "The Downward Spiral" and "The Fragile", while contrasting its heavily modified sounds to the more "organic" approach of "With Teeth". Many critics also commented on the album's overall tone, including descriptions such as "lots of silver and grey ambience" and reference to the album's "oblique tone". "The New York Times" review described the album's sound by saying "Hard beats are softened with distortion, static cushions the tantrums, sneaky bass lines float beneath the surface." The article went on to describe individual tracks: "And as usual the music is packed with details: "Meet Your Master" goes through at least three cycles of decay and rebirth; part of the fun of "The Warning" is tracking the ever-mutating timbres."