Lithium Magazine

AFM / 13th Planet Records

Release date: March 27th, 2012

Review by Mike Bax

If a band can forever be judged on their laurels, then Ministry (ney Al Jourgensen) is one of the A-Number-One bands in existence based on their musical impact in the late 1980s and early 90s. So much of what is considered a mainstay in modern heavy/hardcore music over the past three decades was fleshed out in the early eighties by Ministry. In fact, I'd rank one of the single finest life-changing musical events of my youth as seeing Ministry live in '89 on The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste tour, bombarding the audience with an aural visual overdose of industrial blast-beats and exploding lights behind a floor to ceiling cage of chicken wire (I was never sure whether that cage was to keep the crowd out or the band IN).

In the comic books, they'll tell you that a character is 'dead' in a storyline, only to have those characters inevitably come back to life years down the road. In this same fashion, I never really believed Ministry were packing things in four years ago when they released The Last Sucker and performed their final live dates on the C-U-LaTour in 2008. It didn't feel like they were done. And now, just like a comic book character, they have been resurrected and have a new album (entitled Relapse) coming out in a couple of months.

For Relapse, Jourgensen went to some of his favourite co-conspirators - Mike Scaccia (Rigor Mortis), Tony Campos (Static X), Tommy Victor (Prong) and Casey Orr of (Rigor Mortis/Gwar). The new album lacks some of the obvious political opinions that have permeated Ministry's material over the last three studio albums - Houses of the Molé, Rio Grande Blood and The Last Sucker, but Jourgensen's needle-sharp analytical eye is now keenly pointed at Wall Street, record labels, managerial types, and drug abuse (hey, go with what you know, right?) on Relapse.

Relapse opens with a rolling guitar solo like something one might find on an AC/DC album, accompanied by a crackly voice-over. Describing the record industry as a pack of hyenas and the artists involved as being better off dead than alive, 'Ghouldiggers' kicks in at the two minute mark with a signature explosion of pounding drums, buzz-saw guitars, and a chorus proclaiming "I'm Not Dead Yet" delivering a saccharine look at the recording industry over a seven minute long song.

With the Bush era over, Jourgenson's muse over the past decade (and three solid albums) is gone. 'Double Tap' delivers the final nail in a string of amazing songs themed by the Bush era, sounding like a lost song from The Last Sucker painted with lyrics like: "That Bin Laden's gotta go - Code name Geronimo!"

On 'Free Fall', Jourgenson turns his poison pen 180 degrees, spraying lyrics like: "I pissed my life away / swimming in my habits / I was in over my head / I kissed away any type of normal life / for this instead". It's a somewhat sombre song, delivered with punishingly fast drums and guitars as only Ministry can deliver.

The obligatory Ministry cover this time around is 'United Forces' from the first Stormtroopers of Death album. The punk meets metal Speak English Or Die album from 1985 HAD to have influenced the direction Ministry went towards in the late eighties, and Jourgenson & company somehow manage to take a song that was already awesomely heavy and push it into something even crazier. As such, 'United Forces' ranks amongst Ministry's finest covers.

Relapse finishes off with 'Bloodlust', a mixture of quick drum movements and harmonizing that ALMOST sounds like a throwback to the electro-pop material that launched Ministry back in the early 1980s. if there is some semblance of a circle to be drawn from Jourgensen's debut album With Sympathy unto Relapse, 'Bloodlust' could be just the track to do so.

Relapse is Ministry's twelfth commercial album. Like any band, some of Ministry's repertoire resonates more with fans than others. While I tend to think Ministry hit their stride in 1986 through to 1992 (with Psalm 69; arguably their finest commercial success) I do play Rio Grande Blood (2006) and The Last Sucker (2007) an awful lot as well and take much enjoyment from both of these latter albums.

Overall, Relapse delivers more of what I expect to hear from a Ministry album. Interesting overdubs, pummelling guitar/drum beats and against the grain lyrical content - the three things that have always attracted me to the band. Anyone that has enjoyed Ministry over the past thirty years will certainly find Relapse well worth a listen.

www.facebook.com/ministry
www.thirteenthplanet.com
www.afm-records.de