Label: WEA Format: CD
First off-yeah, I was suprised as fuck, too. Ministry. New album. Live dates. There’s a whole Snake Plissken thing going down here. (As in, I thought you were dead.) And I am pleased to report, continuing the Plissken metaphor possibly a little too far, that this album is no Escape From LA. I mean, yes, it rocks. As in ROCKS. As in R-A-W-fuckin’-Ks. Like several bastards. Absolute bastards. Nay, a WHOLE FUCKING BAG FULL OF BASTARDS. But you knew that already. The question on the lips of anyone who gives a shit is “BUT IS IT ANY FUCKING GOOD, 90210 YOU BASTARD?”
And yes, it is quite splendiferous. Even though, despite all the evidence, the boy Jourgensen thinks Filth Pig was his best album, common sense has prevailed, and Ministry have gone back, from the realms of still-cool-but-verging-dangerously-on-generic Grindcore to the realms of music-to-sound-good-when-you’re-wankered-and-preferably-not-just-on-whiskey-and-cola. It is a testament to this credo and an illustration of just how bloody long it’s been since they released an album that the sleevenotes to this one contain (well-deserved) RIPs to both Tim Leary and Uncle Bill Burroughs. Even if you hated a band, that in itself would be a reason to listen to their shit. But Ministry have come up with nine other reasons- each one a classic, whether it be the single “Bad Blood”, with its grinding riffery (Ouch. Sorry) or “Vex And Siolence” (yes, my first thought was “oh dear” too) in which the probably festering though allegedly still majestic corpse of Led Zep‘s mighty “Kashmir” is exhumed, and fucked to death with a vigour even Jeffrey Dahmeror Karen Greenlee would be hard pushed (wa-hey!) to match. Or “Nursing Home”, a kind of stripped down-equivalent to Psalm 69‘s “Scarecrow”. (Still the track by which every successive Godflesh track is measured).
Basically, Dark Side… shows Jourgensen’s still ridiculously in control, even though the sounds he produces sound wonderfully chaotic: a huge, fuck-off big, fucked-up machine barely held in check by the power of technology. Or some shit like that. Basically, if Psalm 69 was the Gulf and Filth Pig was Bosnia, then Dark Side of The Spoon sees Ministry playing post-Kosovo, post-Columbine, pre-Millennial/Apocalyptic ROCK AND FUCKING ROLL. Only without all the shit bits.
Way cool.
-Deuteronemu, Dark Lord Of The Sith-
