Ministry Albums (19)
What The Critics Say
By the time The Last Dubber arrived, loyal Ministry fans had already experienced two years' worth of fringe releases, all coming after the "band" "retired" in 2007. This remix effort is the least desirable of all the live albums and other ephemera Al Jourgensen has released since laying his Ministry project to rest, but it's not a complete washout and serves a purpose for fanatics who thought The Last Sucker was just too tight. Here, that album gets chopped and stretched into a sprawling landscape of scrapes and thuds, none of it hitting as hard as the source material. A good example is how the opening "Clocks Strike Thirteen" mix of "Watch Yourself" doesn't catch fire until its last 41 seconds, although the crawl to get there is textured, interesting, and as druggy as the spliff-toking George W. on the cover implies. Just like on Ministry's Rio Grande Dub, Clayton Worbeck handles most of the remixing with John Bechdel and DJ Hardware getting one track each. With his hands mostly off the project, Jourgensen gets to stick by his retirement promise. Fans get that lone Ministry album which doesn't demand much attention and can actually slink into the background. ~ David Jeffries, All Music Guide
'Adios...Putas Madres'
Release Date 3/31/2009
Tracks 13
Label 13th Planet
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Ministry's long goodbye continued with Adios...Putas Madres, a live album that followed a remix collection, a covers comp, and even a charity single for the Chicago Blackhawks, all of which were released after leader Al Jourgensen announced he was dismantling the band for good. But if you ever think Ministry could be among those who milk their retirement announcement for all it's worth, this is far from being a cheap cash-in. If you go by their fickle Internet forums, it may not even be a gift to the fans, at least not the ones who only covet the middle sliver of the band's long discog. The material here is pulled from Ministry's last three albums, a hitless George W. Bush-hating concept trilogy that alienated some longtime fan club members -- known as the Piss Army -- while still yielding a high amount of prime material. Adios contains arguably the best songs from the three, pumped up to maximum volume with both the guitar crunch and percussion blasts raging harder than before. It's exactly the formula used on their last live album, Sphinctour, and those familiar know it works, as long as you love both the source material and relentless pummeling that would make most tap out early. Even if there's no consoling the fans who wanted a career-spanning kiss-off or one more go with the mid-period hits, Adios is a worthy fringe release, worth the attention of anyone who thought final studio album The Last Sucker absolutely destroyed. ~ David Jeffries, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Rather than the trademark bone-munching industrial metal of later years, With Sympathy is panto-goth new wave synth-pop that sounds less like the band chewing your pancreas and more like Human League's surly little brother. Great stuff, then, for those who allied themselves with Ally Sheedy's character in The Breakfast Club. "Here We Go" grinds all over some electronic horns, "Work for Love" stop-starts and shouts about like "Walk This Way" without all that scary rap, and the whole record becomes a secret weapon against the contrived snarls of the albums to follow. Surely, Al Jourgensen must be more insecure about his past than a superstar linebacker over childhood courses in ballet. ~ Dean Carlson, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
After spending four acidic years croaking out songs that damned George W. Bush and his administration, Al Jourgensen put his Ministry project to rest with the new album The Last Sucker plus this compilation of cover tunes, which was fittingly released on April Fools Day. If Sucker was the yin then Cover Up is the yang, with the reverence-free Ministry blazing through a set of classic rock favorites -- save the hilarious choice of "What a Wonderful World" -- in full-on destruction mode. Those familiar with the band's signature sound -- steely, gritty guitars, screaming vocals, and relentless drums/drum machines -- and aware of the original tunes have already heard the album in their imaginations. Save the repurposing of "What a Wonderful World" as an ironic epic, this is an absolutely surprise-free release and a welcome one because of it. As expected, the driving "Radar Love" threatens to come off the tracks when Ministry play it in thrash style, while a thunderous version of Deep Purple's "Space Truckin'" proves that cowbells really do have their place in industrial metal. The "Black Betty," "Mississippi Queen," and "Just Got Paid" trilogy adds up to a three-headed monster and leads into a set of tracks that longtime fans will know by heart. The main reason for the "Co-Conspirators" credit, "Supernaut" is an old chestnut from Jourgensen's 1000 Homo DJs project, and if "Lay Lady Lay" sounds a wee bit thinner than anything else here it's because it comes from 1995 and Ministry's album Filth Pig. Strange that the cover of "(Let's Get) Physical" from the Revolting Cocks side project is missing, but this is an otherwise perfect execution of a great idea and the best possible party record for those who are hellbound and loving it. ~ David Jeffries, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
With The Last Sucker Al Jourgensen not only brings his anti-Bush Jr trilogy of albums to a close, but he also shutters the Ministry band/project/death machine for good. Of course Ministry has always been a free-flowing thing -- a dark synth pop outfit that eventually morphed into an aggressive, guitar-heavy beast with a few genre jumps in-between. Jourgensen's side project Revolting Cocks could have been mistaken for Ministry on their 2006 album Cocked and Loaded so there's a good chance that whatever this crazed Texan throws his name on might as well be Ministry, barring any future side projects that are as far out as Acid Horse or Lard. Ministry fans are really Jourgensen fans, but it's the name recognition that gives the announcement some weight, especially in the U.S., the country that re-elected "that guy." With that in mind, The Last Sucker is a jettisoning of all that was big and in-your-face-American about Ministry with little of the hot rod worship or unabashed gluttony of earlier albums. They still sound huge, they still sound like Jourgenson on a rampage, but gone is the ironic redneck idiocy -- too close to home, maybe -- and even the balls out cover of "Roadhouse Blues" is announced with "All I wanna do is get my kicks before this whole sh*thouse goes up in flames." Jourgensen's covers are usually all-party time, but this album holds no hope for and finds no joy in America and expresses it brilliantly. Samples lifted from Bush Jr speeches had been a staple for seven years by the time The Last Sucker rolled around, but "Death and Destruction" takes a cackle from the President and sonically manipulates it into one of the most unsettling laughs on record. Many more effective moments come from the lyrics and their delivery as Jourgenson screams out tales of young men dying for nothing ("No Glory") and a President out of touch with not only the average American's experience, but also the human experience ("The Last Sucker"). Book ending this pummeling set of bleak songs are two of the best Ministry efforts to date. First is "Let's Go" which is "Jesus Built My Hotrod" remarkably amped-up with Jourgensen absolutely shredding on guitar. At the end is the epic "End of Days, Pt. 1" and "Pt. 2" featuring Fear Factory vocalist Burton C. Bell along with a lengthy sample of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's farewell speech -- the "Military-Industrial Complex" one. Jourgensen is exiting with his greatest idea ever and the most layered Ministry moment on record, but thinking about the loss of the band is nearly impossible when listening to this world unto its own. Within these walls there's only mourning for the better America Jourgenson sees as just about gone. It may slowly be stolen by corporate, Bush-supporting thieves in the night, but with The Last Sucker, Ministry goes out in a blaze of glory. ~ David Jeffries, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Outraged, out of control, and a little bit out of ideas, Ministry unleashes their second attack on President George W. Bush with Rio Grande Blood, number two in Al Jourgensen's promised Bush-hating trilogy, which when finished will bring his Ministry project to a close. The manipulated Bush samples and hate-filled revolution lyrics utilized on 2004's great Houses of the Molé are back, and if there's an easy way to differentiate that album from what is essentially Molé, Pt. 2, it's the contribution Prong guitarist Tommy Victor makes to this edition of Ministry, giving Rio Grande Blood a tauter crunch, a sharper thrash. Victor's influence extends past the tracks he appears on, as evidenced by the opening title track, which finds Jourgensen creating a Prong-ish juggernaut on his lonesome. While lumbering numbers like "Fear (Is Big Business)" and "Yellow Cake" will do little to attract new fans -- and the reappearance of the Rantology compilation's "The Great Satan" feels like a cheat -- there's plenty of that smart, topical bile that's uniquely Jourgensen to steady the album. Vicious thrash-punk of the highest order, "Lieslieslies" isn't afraid to question the "truth" about 9/11 and the way "Gangreen" parodies the Marines' cry of "Ooh-rah!" makes it a charming moment for pipe-bomb revolutionaries. If they happened to skip the last full-length, Ministry fanatics would do well to start here and then work their way up to the superior Houses of the Molé. Save a couple brilliant tracks, this is just the usual "satisfying follow-up." ~ David Jeffries, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Released in 2003, Animositisomina might've brought Ministry back from the dead, but it's Houses of the Molé that fully resurrects everyone's favorite ghoul. Guv-hating Al Jourgensen is back, and he's siphoned the gas from Jesus' hotrod for a new squadron of industro-thrash devil machines. In music and platform, Molé is like a rebroadcast from the year 1992, and that's exactly Jourgensen's point. Hate the new boss, same as the old boss. Where once there was "N.O.W.," there is now "No W," and a new batch of soundbites to paint the Prez as a spooky Orwellian snake trader. Jourgensen's words are a blunt-edged rant. "Ask me why you feel deceived/And stripped of all your liberties/It doesn't take a genius to explain that today." His cynicism is bolted to rabid programmed beats and Mike Scaccia's roaring guitar; in the background nihilism sharpens its teeth with a Rambo knife. In this way Molé carries through nine official tracks. They all start with "W"; they're all stripped of everything but stuttering, unforgiving percussion, tuneless blasts of guitar, and Jourgensen's acid spit. Psalm 69 was a similar screed, but it had arrangements and even some biting sarcasm. There's just corrosion 12 years later, as any levity's scraped, melted, and reshaped into ammunition for a new fight. With Molé, Jourgensen has mobilized the fatalism and fury that always rumbled through industrial and thrash music, and left everything else in the staging area. There are detours, but they're to places no "good" citizens go. "Warp City" teems in its own twisted amorality, while "WTV" is the Ludovico technique turned in on itself, a numbing tumble of media snippets beaming through shards of industrial waste. (The Law & Order drop-in is notable and telling.) "World" breaks the album's relentless thrashing pace, and hopes for a planet "where people aren't afraid," but it's still guided by an undercurrent of pessimism. Instead of empty wishes, Ministry offers buckets of clenching bile. There are no melodies here, no innovation. Creativity has hardened into apathy; it's gone into hiding until the culture war ends. Houses of the Molé isn't really music, it's hard tack -- sustenance for wartime. ~ Johnny Loftus, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
It has often been said that Ministry, more than anyone, made industrial music safe for headbangers. Thanks to Al Jourgensen and his Chicago colleagues, many Iron Maiden, Metallica, and Judas Priest fans started listening to industrial. Some of the headbangers who were turned on to industrial by Jourgensen's outfit only became casual industrial fans; the luckiest converts, however, went on to experience the brutal pleasures of Throbbing Gristle, Skinny Puppy, Front Line Assembly, and Einstürdenze Neubauten. But while Ministry certainly opened doors, there are some industrial purists who feel that the band became too metal along the way -- and those are the people who may have a hard time appreciating Sphinctour. A collection of live performances from 1996, Sphinctour emphasizes material from Filth Pig and the excellent Psalm 69. Neither of those studio albums catered to industrial purists; both are for people who like their industrial laced with a huge dose of alternative metal, and the same goes for Sphinctour. From "Scarecrow," "N.W.O.," and "Crumb" to "Just One Fix," this CD is extremely headbanger-friendly. And while that will inevitably offend some industrial purists -- who would be better off sticking to classic Skinny Puppy and Throbbing Gristle recordings of the '80s -- it is good news if you like industrial at its most metal-minded. Some listeners will complain about the absence of "Jesus Built My Hot Rod" and longtime fans may argue that Sphinctour, by placing so much emphasis on songs from Psalm 69 and Filth Pig, doesn't paint as well-rounded a picture of Ministry as it should. Those are valid complaints, but all things considered, Sphinctour is an exciting, if imperfect, document of Ministry's 1996 tour. ~ Alex Henderson, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Ministry strode the alternative music world like a colossus during the late '80s and early '90s, placing one huge foot in the domain of industrial music, then another in the domain of heavy metal, dwarfing the aggressive capabilities of its contemporaries and sounding surprisingly tuneful while doing it. After 1992's Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs, though, the band disintegrated around leader Alain Jourgensen, and Ministry limped through the rest of the '90s with a pair of desultory, deliberately difficult records, Filth Pig and The Dark Side of the Spoon. Nearly a decade after Ministry's peak, 2003's Animositisomina returned the group to the quality of its Wax Trax prime, with an opener (the title track) that ranks up there with classics like "Burning Inside" and "Just One Fix." Ministry is still hell-bent on the kind of rigid, hooky thrash metal that fewer groups were interested in with the rise of nu-metal and rap-metal, but the bandmembers prove their chops; they may look like lords of drug-addled doom and gloom, but they're a great band with energy left to burn. Animositisomina nods to the group's new wave past with a cover of Magazine's "The Light Pours out of Me," and occasionally inspires vocal and melodic comparisons to Jane's Addiction, the band's rivals (and polar opposites) in the alternative metal scene of the late '80s. Still dour and humorless, but pruned of its experimental tendencies, Ministry delivered its first solid record in a decade. ~ John Bush, All Music Guide
'Live Psalm 69 Tour'
Release Date 6/6/2000
Tracks 10
Label Ipecac Recordings
See Album Tracklist and Review
