The Last Sucker Reviews: spoilers

Discussion
45

Yea, a lot of butt kissing over there. I think most of it is done in order to be on the good side of Mrs J or the band in hopes that they will get a back stage pass or personal email from Al.

I think what it is is that some people make completely mindless posts on PA and realise that they have absolutely no argument when replied to, so they have to resort to bitching, slanderous comments on other sites to try to gain some kind of composure…

Last sucker, much better than RGB, not quite as good as Houses.
Life is Good is the best track on it, nice and tribal like recent Killing Joke.
Tenohtwo’s review is pretty accurate, except I think Life is Good and the End of Days epic are the highlights.
And I think Roadhouse Blues was a huge mistake too.

46

Let’s Go
Jourgensen/Quirin
Words Jourgensen

Cool riff, keys have an old school feel. Has a crazy solo in the middle (probably the best on the CD) Prong sounding ending riff. Wonder what the sample is in the beginning. I like this tune a lot.

Watch Yourself
Jourgensen/Raven
Words: Jourgensen

My Favorite song so far. The snare drum & riff go well together. Probably the best riff on the cd. I like the groovy bass line too; the bass stands out. The sample of a bell sound works well in the song. The wah wah solo rocks!

Life Is Good
Jourgensen/Quirin
Words: Jourgensen

Al sings similar to something wonderful & the light pours out of me. Cool solo. I also like the chants. Another stand out song.

The Dick Song
Jourgensen/Quirin
Words: Jourgensen

Sounds like Lies from RGB. I like the laughing in the middle & the solo.

The Last Sucker
Jourgensen/Victor
Words: Jourgensen

[font “Times New Roman”][size 3]Cool opening riff and solo in the middle. Some strange double bass that seems difficult to pull off live.
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[font “Times New Roman”][size 3][/size][/font]No Glory
Jourgensen/Victor
Words: Jourgensen

RGB speed sounding tune. Wasn’t a favorite at first but this one’s growing on me.

Death & Destruction
Jourgensen/Quirin
Words: Jourgensen

I like the drums (crazy at times) and the laughing with Bush samples. There’s a crowd sample hidden which I also like; the keys sound old school. Like this tune.

Roadhouse Blues
Morrison/Krieger/Manzerek/Densmore

Wonder who the voice in the beginning is. Sounds like the guy from the live Queensryche show playing the lead character in concert off the latest CD. I do like the solo & the effect makes it sound like a dual guitar solo. The middle part & the harmonica works but Al’s screaming & the tempo isn’t for me and is probably my least favorite.

Die In A Crash
Jourgensen/Victor/Bell
Words: Bell/Jourgensen/Victor

This tune doesn’t seem to fit with the other material on the CD. Cool bass but not a favorite of mine.

End of Days Part One
Jourgensen/Victor/Raven/Bell
Words: Bell/Jourgensen

Heavy riff; RGB style but slower. Has a Tommy feel to it. I like the cowbell!

End of Days Part Two
Jourgensen/Victor/Raven/Bell
Words: Bell/Jourgensen

The riff in the beginning sounds like it could be off with sympathy. Not keen on the length or the child chanting sample.

Overall I’m enjoying the CD. I like that it’s a step down from the RGB feel and the drums work very well. I was a little unhappy to hear about the programming of drums at first because Trent’s latest CD has programmed drums and I was very unhappy & makes the cd flop IMO but it works on TLS. Can’t wait to get the release & see the show in 2008.

47

I think what it is is that some people make completely mindless posts on PA and realise that they have absolutely no argument when replied to, so they have to resort to bitching, slanderous comments on other sites to try to gain some kind of composure…

???

Life is Good is the best track on it, nice and tribal like recent Killing Joke.
Again…???

48

i’m liking it. i’ve not really had a chance to sit down and listen to it properly, but it seems to be a solid album. i’m sorry, as i know a few will disagree with me, but rgb and this album are far better than houses and animositisomina. and i can hear loads of industrial elements on both the last two albums, they’re not just thrash metal albums. i can hear loads of references to lorah, filthpig et al. in fact, tls seems to have a real unique feel to it. it doesn’t feel like any other album, even rgb. sure, it’s fast and heavy, but it just feels, well, fresh. i like it. it feels quite punky in parts, bits of pailhead appearing. i could swear i keep hearing jello as well… it’s not, i imagine. it feels like a nice mixed up album. it actually sounds like al was having fun.

49

actually, a thought occurs to me at this point; that this is the album Al was trying to make when he made filthpig. i remember him claiming he wanted to go heavier, faster… this seems to be it. just a thought.

50

Life is Good is the best track on it, nice and tribal like recent Killing Joke.
Again…???[/reply]
What part are you confused about?
That I think Life is Good is the best track or that I think the tribal elements of the guitar and drums are reminiscent of KJ?

gasp
Maybe both?

51

That I think Life is Good is the best track…
That’d be it, right there. Though I must say it isn’t the worst track, by far…

But hey, opinions and such.

shrugs

52

after some more listens the programmed drums are starting to grate on me. the intro to death $ destruction made me think i had messed up my playlist and envoye had come on.

i’m not against programmed drums, but damn, these sound obviously programmed. mebbe he needed a different drum module or something…

overall, it’s unfortunate that this is the LAST ministry record, but not such a bad cd.

those riffs sound alot like prong, which i guess is obvious.

53

Industrial metal? Hell no. Nothing close to industrial has come out of Ministry since The Mind is a Terrible Thing To Taste. After this last album I want to disassociate Ministry from anything I consider to be my sacred Industrial music. Maybe we call it “Bush Metal” from now on.

Ministry never did anything purely Industrial. It’s called Industrial Metal you fucking cunt piece of shit and all of their albums explore that style in some way.

55

I hear more of a punk influence than metal on the guitars on LORAH and Mind. I don’t think “industrial metal” is a very accurate description of those particular albums, especially LORAH.

1002

57

Yeah, in magazine articles and reviews, I used to see “Industrial Rock” and “Aggro” or “Aggro Rock” used a lot. I also remember seeing Ministry lumped into a big magazine article that tried to define “Industrial Dance Music” to new fans (pretty much all the Wax Trax/Nettwerk bands were mentioned in this article…wish I still had it for reference), and this was AFTER LORAH was released.

1002

59

Twitch was purely industrial with absolutely no metal in it. LORAH and Mind was a mixture but definitely industrial. Not even sure I would consider Filth Pig metal. The latest albums have samples but really aren’t industrial at all.

Basically, I don’t think you know what you are talking about.

No, I do know what I’m talking about. All of the band’s music (no matter what era) has elements of Industrial in it, but they have always fused those elements with more musical or conventional notions (song structure, melody, riffs etc.)

I honestly believe that all of their albums (minus ‘With Sympathy’ and ‘Twitch’) could be easily classified as Industrial Rock or Industrial Metal. Even the wierdest stuff like ‘Filth Pig’ and ‘Dark Side of the Spoon’ incorporate elements of Industrial Metal.

My point was that if you’re going to say they never did anything “Industrial” after ‘The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste’, you are COMPLETELY wrong because:

a) They never did an album that was purely Industrial to begin with, it was all Industrial Metal or Electro-Industrial (‘With Sympathy’, ‘Twitch’). Compare any of their songs to something like “Hamburger Lady” by Throbbing Gristle and you will see what I mean.

and

b) Have you even heard “Grace” from ‘Psalm 69’? That is more traditionally Industrial than anything they had done up to that point. Have you even heard the entire album ‘Animositisomina’? That album incorporates a lot of electronics and programming that give it a strong Industrial vibe.

61

I really don’t consider Filth Pig to be industrial at all, and it seems like for that album they aimed to get away from it, but decided to throw their fans a bone and put The Fall on there; it’s one of the less electronic albums in the catalogue, imo. But manages to still stay ahead of the Bush Trilogy, or at least the last two. But other than those three, there are some industrial qualities. Psalm 69 teased it
Filth Pig tried to neglect it
Spoon tried to redeem it
Animositisomnia redeemed it.
Houses of The Mole = Psalm 69 pt. II

That’s how I always looked at it, at least. But there’s still industrial influence on all the albums, but it’s all a matter of “how much?”.

62

for better or worse, industrial metal is a style of music that mixes metal with samples, electronic beats and some post punk elements. YES - its an inaccurate term as fuck but it has stuck over the years and people use it to describe Fear Factory, Rammstein etc. and TLS definitely fits in that category.

Yeah, its a little harmful to industrial music, which at least in the 80s represented a far more ambitious form of music than metal has ever been, but what can you do?

64

Of course, industrial itself has nothing to do with metal; however, “industrial metal” obviously does :slight_smile:
As I said, its an inaccurate term, since most so called industrial metal bands are not influenced in any way by industrial music itself; however, there is really very little one can do at this point in time to change how people use the term. The exact same is true for most contemporary gothic metal, which has absolutely nothing to do with the gothic rock style (which was at least to me a very interesting form of post punk indeed, at least in its early form) that it has supposedly been influenced by. Coincidentally, I see a lot of influences from gothic rock in industrial metal, just listen to how Sisters Of Mercy, Love And Rockets or Clan of Xymox mixed electronic beats with guitars…

65

I remember the dance clubs playing a few of the Mind songs. They were all over Burning Inside when it came out. So What? was played a lot. Seems like there was one more song off of that album but I can’t remember what. I don’t recall ever hearing songs from any albums after that at clubs. Not even from the Psalm 69 album.

Really? You didn’t go to the same clubs as me, then. They played the hell out of NWO, Just One Fix, and Jesus Built My Hotrod back in the mid-90s.

66

They still play the hell out of those songs in goth clubs all over the place…