Chicagoist reviews The Last Sucker

Discussion
1

http://chicagoist.com/2007/09/13/ministry_usues.php

—It’s grown easy to take Ministry for granted. Hell, we bet most people didn’t even realize that the band was putting out albums since the group’s public profile has dropped considerably since they had a hit with the Gibby Haynes-sung speed freakabilly of “Jesus Built My Hotrod.”

Certainly the band seemed to deserve to fall by the wayside. A couple bad puns passing as albums that were saddled with mediocre metal was enough to even press die-hard fans’ allegiance. Y’see, back in the day Al Jourgensen was a motherfucker of a producer, crafting bruising, pummeling, goth speed-tech.—

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“His masterpiece was The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste, an album that sampled everything and anything to craft a bad acid trip tempered with about 70 pounds of aural cocaine. It sounded like danger and Armageddon, and it was darkly beautiful.”

Um, what does danger and armaggedon sound like? Also, I never once thought of Mind as “a bad acid trip”, with “aural cocaine”? It’s these kinds of colorful descriptions I see at times in Ministry articles and reviews that drive me nuts. The best example I can think of is All Music Guide’s review of Houses, which offers these over-the-top statements:

“…he’s siphoned the gas from Jesus’ hotrod for a new squadron of industro-thrash devil machines.”

“…in the background nihilism sharpens its teeth with a Rambo knife.”

“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.”

“Instead of empty wishes, Ministry offers buckets of clenching bile. 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.”

Is it me, or does all that sound a little silly?

1002

3

this reviewer obviously is being paid/is a good new friend of the jourgensens/ has no clue whatsoever about doing a proper critique of ANYTHING–especially not music.
i’m not a musician. i couldn’t analyze for anyone what the guitar part of X is or the bass part is or whether the stupid instruments were in tune. i hear that 's been a recurring issue on the road with countless bands. " newer "bands don’t even know they’re in tune.
now THAT is sad.
i alway appreciate the detailed analysis here by various contributors who seem to know what they’re talking about, as far as notes, chords and all that rot. i might as well be gay, for that matter.i hear what i like, and go from there.

and why exactly did ministry “deserve to fall by the wayside”?
because they weren’t fitting someone’s rock formula for success?
this kind of crap makes me want to obliterate the whole group of so called rock critics.
as the saying goes, “…Those who can’t, teach…”. critics of this ilk fit marginally in there.

4

I’ve long given up on reviews since reading rolling stone…You can give a talented rock band 3 stars, but give complete shit 4…so i’ve lost faith in almost all reviewers. Fan-reviews is where it’s at.

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“His masterpiece was The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste, an album that sampled everything and anything to craft a bad acid trip tempered with about 70 pounds of aural cocaine. It sounded like danger and Armageddon, and it was darkly beautiful.”

Um, what does danger and armaggedon sound like? Also, I never once thought of Mind as “a bad acid trip”, with “aural cocaine”? It’s these kinds of colorful descriptions I see at times in Ministry articles and reviews that drive me nuts.

They sound like reviews written by people whose only experience with ‘outsider music’ is perhaps the odd Black Sabbath album or Metallica’s late 80’s/early nineties output.

‘Aural Cocaine’…???

Oh please. That album is basically a Killing Joke / PIL / Black Sabbath tribute album. A couple of new wave metal tracks, some anti establishment industrial punk and a couple of nice-ish instrumentals.

The best example I can think of is All Music Guide’s review of Houses, which offers these over-the-top statements:

“[i]…he’s siphoned the gas from Jesus’ hotrod for a new squadron of industro-thrash devil machines.”

“…in the background nihilism sharpens its teeth with a Rambo knife.”

“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.”

“Instead of empty wishes, Ministry offers buckets of clenching bile. 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.”[/i]

Is it me, or does all that sound a little silly?

1002

Ha ha!!

Who writes this rubbish?? The same people heaping praise on Tom Cruise’s ‘heroics’ in Mission Impossible III? This person should get a job writing scripts for Michael Bay films. I hear it pays better!

This really takes the cake though:

“Nihilism sharpens it’s teeth with a Rambo knife” ???

Yikes!

6

I can’t believe the reviews this album is getting! Gushing praise indeed. Have any of these people writing this lopsided rubbish even heard a classic Ministry album??

The Last Sucker is an out and out turkey. Cliched and leaden, it’s about as dumb as a ‘politically motivated’ metal album could possibly get. I can’t even bring myself to read half the lyrics - especially such crap as ‘Death And Destruction’ ‘End Of Days’ and ‘The Dick Song’. It’s just too painful.

I didn’t buy the last one - this time I’m actually going to warn others not to buy it.

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Maybe it’s really not a bad album and this board is just full of fucking misanthropic idiots?

Nah, couldn’t be.

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i completely agree with what he says about the MIND album.

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Maybe it’s really not a bad album and this board is just full of fucking misanthropic idiots?

Nah, couldn’t be.

Some big words…although there’s a lot of bitching I think we all wanted Al to continue his past creative attempts. Unfortunately like a few have said on this board, Al is different a person surrounded by different people and as most artists repeatedly say they want to grow and always try/do different things. I’m one who likes the new cd but I don’t like the way ministry has grown with the last three cds.

10

The last three do have moments, but few. I’d be lying if I were to say that I hate the bush trilogy entirely. I still like a good majority of the HOTM album, and a few from from the other two. There hasn’t been any steps forward in years. Al definately progressed a little foward and to the side with HOTM, so I give him that much. But from there, he’s still sort of been sitting there and shitting out whatever he can, as quick as possible. I’m just curious as to what he’ll do and how he’ll do when he’s officially done with ministry.

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i seem to recall the time of attending a metallica concert with everyone in ministry and we sat in the hall about 20 minutes into the thing.a lot of us.it was pitiful. ask mikey.
i wish i could say something good about the new ministry record/band line up/ whatever. i’m a little too scorched and honest to do that.

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How do you know the guys from Ministry Special Ed.? No longer associated with them I presume. Any cool war stories to share?

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How do you know the guys from Ministry Special Ed.? No longer associated with them I presume. Any cool war stories to share?
I had suspected that it might be Duane, but he(?) just said earlier that he’s not a musician.

Either way, you’re a funny dude, Ed, so cheers.

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Special Ed = Shay Jones

( no diggity )
Yes…because she was around when Mikey and Paul were in the band, I remember. And she just loves Metallica, didn’t ya know?

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shay…nice try.the metallica show at the rosemont had a fifteen plus ministry guest list. i was along for the “ride”. i wanna say william tucker was there too, but my memory is blurry except for the crappiness of the show.everyone left, before the backstage bs.
i, like a lot of others, had a lot of great experiences helping ministry get to where they went artistically. the current lineup of half baked players is what it is.
no, don’t have any war stories to share. not now. certainly, later.