ministry - houses of the molė
the return of the alien. the thorn in america's musical side. the worlds ultimate anti-hero.
and this time the alien has a purpose - to scare the shit out of george w bush.
the fact that this cd has 69 tracks ( ie. lots of empty space and a couple of 'hidden' extras) should come as no surprise to those that have followed the long and varied path that al 'alien' jourgensen has followed over the last two decades, as this is an indicator that this new album is a direct descendant of ministry's break through 'psalm 69' epic industrial platinum album. revisiting the same dark humour and excessive use of vocal samples this album has the urgency that 'psalm 69' brought to the world when bush senior was in the hot seat, and, now that his son fills the vacant spot alien has lifted choice sections of the w's speeches and set them to the ultimate industrial chugga-chugga soundtrack with subtle cut-n-paste manipulation to drive his message home, again and again throughout every track. the vocal cutup us a well worn tool of the industrial genre, but it has been a while since anyone did this kinda stuff as well as alien has here.
at first everything appears the same on first listen, yet everything is different this time around.
for a start aliens long standing musical partner, paul barker, decided to move onto pastures, forcing alien to 'get his ass into gear and make a balls-out punk-rock record'. and by god he has. the sound is much more real as he has enlisted real musicians, a real proper band involving various hard fuckers from fear (mark baker), mindfunk (john monte), and guitarist mike scaccia to make this album sound completely vital. yes there are the trademark pro-tooled rifferama loops to excess, yes there are the drill-stun drumming and yes there is alien screaming/chanting his best gothic death trip lyrics, but for the first time in a few years these songs fucking rule (man).
starting off with 'no w' (the only track title that doesn't start with a 'w'), with its wagner-esque choral loop the listener feels the ultimate chill as the great pretenders voice kicks in with his declarations of evil and the like and then the guitars a let rip-p-p-p to the finishing close with the phrase we all have implanted in all our hearts and minds - 'god bless america'. indeed.
now the album has started we're off on a fantastic 50 minute ride, with its massive choruses that stick in your veins for a long time. listen to 'wrong' and you too will be chanting 'you're wrong everytime' at full volume before you can reach the stop button, with the track containing the ultimate example of the vocal cutup being embedded within, the most scary vocal snippet ever committed to tape - 'i have a message to the people of iraq - go home and die'. luckily this is followed by the ultimate in gothic black humour in 'warp city' with its tales of death and red wine ('she started drinking wine, and then she couldn't stop, she must be out of her mind, that's why she had to be shot') to alleviate the cloud of fear and paranoia for a few moments, showing why no-one else can touch ministry when they are on form such as here. no-one.
subtle ? nope .. not at all. live, loud and very direct. this album is serious fun, with the emphasis on serious - and easily the best rock album in 2004.
no contest.