Cabaret Voltaire’s musical legacy is sort of like an extended version of Al, really, just rearranged, and spread out with MANY more releases over 20+ years.
Al/Ministry basically has had 4 or 5 distincts sounds:
Outright synth-pop, slightly poppish noise (Twitch & the Wax Trax-era material), outright industrial (LORAH arguably up through somewhere between Psalm 69 & DSOTS) and then generic, overtly political hillbilly metal (everything after the AI soundtrack).
The Cabs also had 5 distinct “eras”: 1. Their early experimental phase (fantastic stuff IF you can approach it with plenty of time on your hands, a good set of headphones and an open mind), 2. Their later Nag Nag Nag/Baader Meinhof-era more politically-minded noise/post punk material, 3. Then their early-mid 80s uptempo funk (Crackdown, Microphonies etc). I actually find this their least enjoyable period. Don’t get me wrong, I still have a lot of favorites from this era, but some of it seems forced and I think they were trying to beat a quick retreat from their “experimental” badge right after Chris Watson’s departure. 4. The next phase (arguably including “Code”) was one I personally like, the Chicago house sounds on Groovy, Laidback’n Nasty–again, just taking it as what it is. Even with throwaway pop-type material, Richard Kirk still worked up some wicked grooves on some of those songs.
Probably the most underrated material from CV is their 5th and final phase, encompassing all of the post-GLN material: Percussion Force, Body & Soul and Colours. These are all forgotten but superb mini-albums/extended EPs (these three releases can be thought of as their version of Twitch–one foot still in poppy house and another foot in darker ambient/jungle/trance material). Then they did Technology: Western Re-works which is a great remake (definitely not remixes) album of some of their best songs from the early-mid 80s. Think of Kraftwerk’s The Mix as a similar type of reworking. Also, Wikipedia’s entry is wrong in that saying that Colours is the last album Mal sang on. I believe all of the vocals on Technology were re-recorded and it came out in '92…Crackdown, in particular, sounds better as early 90s techno than it does as early 80s electro-funk song.
Going on from that is their final trilogy from '92-'94: Plasticity, International Language, and The Conversation (double disc). They are all dark, engrossing studies in jungle/trance/ambient with the usual CV “soundtrack” feel with lots of samples etc (there’s a very heavy Outer Limits influence at work here and CV even samples themselves in an apparent nod to their past). The Conversation’s 2nd disc is so dissimilar to the first disc that they might as well be two separate albums.
Then Richard H. Kirk’s solo stuff from the early 90s onward is similar in many ways to the last handful of CV releases…I really think of the final CV trio as basically Kirk solo efforts as I it’s hard to find any of Mal’s influence anywhere.
P.S. Both versions of No Name, No Slogan are pretty mediocre effort on all counts. You’d think the combined powers of the Ministry & the CV camps at the height of their respective powers could have come up with at least an EP’s worth of material.
P.P.S. As far as RH Kirk solo material & TG, there’s enough in each of those topics to fill up another whole message board. But for RHK solo, I recommend Sandoz’s Digial Lifeforms (Kirk has recorded under dozens of oddball pseudonyms), Kirk’s Virtual State & The Numer of Magic, Dark Magnus, Orchestral Terrestrial, & Intoxica by Nitrogen. For TG, just get “The Taste Of” and “20 Jazz Funk Greats”. Hamburger Lady & Hot on the Hheels of Love" are probably the most beginner-friendly songs.