Label: Mayan Format: CD
So Bush got in again. Fuck. Well, look on the bright side, at least it means Al Jourgensen still has something to be angry about. Small comfort I know, but you take this shit where you can find it, I guess. I mean, a better world would obviously be great to live in, but I’m not sure my mind could cope with the ontological dissonance that would come with listening to a nice, chilled-out, feel-good Ministry album. Which this clearly (and thankfully) isn’t.
Although this is a “best of”, kind of, one new track “The Great Satan”, as the title implies, leads me to expect great things of the new material Mr J is apparently working on. “We don’t need your fucking war, so get your asses OUT!!!” he yells, over the by-now de rigeur Big Black Playing “Ace Of Spades” On Top Of A Tank guitar assault. Anyone hoping for a return to the flaccid Pop of Work For Love will be sorely disappointed, which is, let’s face it, how it should be.
“Kind of” a “best of”? Well, yeah. Kind of. Of the fifteen tracks here, one’s new, eight are new and alternate mixes, three are live, and one’s from the soundtrack of the Vampire: The Masquerade PC game (which means I, at least, hadn’t heard it before, what with a botched installation of XP Service Pack 2 having rendered my computer incapable of running the fucking thing. If Al Jourgensen ever gets tired of shouting at the White House, he could do worse than turn on Microsoft). And the new mixes are damn good. None of your “it’s just the same, but the drums are a bit louder/it’s a bit shorter/they’ve chucked in an extra ‘motherfucker’” fobbing off here – the “Jesus Built My Hotrod Update Mix”, for example, has, as far as I can tell, a whole new vocal track, including a radically different take on the Gibby Haynes intro.
“No W” is as it was, only more so – different samples, a much more bombastic beginning (yes, more bombastic)… I could go on. The only mix I think is a slight (and that’s slight) disappointment is “Stigmata” – basically, you don’t fuck with perfection, really. Jourgensen’s new vocals, tortured and anguished as ever, have a bit more warmth to them… which tends to detract from the whole effect. It’s amazing just how brutally mantric that riff is, even all these years later. And it’s still a wonderful track, even with my misgivings.
The live tracks – “Thieves”, “Psalm 69” and a stellar performance of Filth Pig‘s standout track “The Fall” -are also ace, illustrating yet again just how tight and regulated Ministry manage to keep all this chaos, even when freed from the studio. It’s like Jourgensen’s got a huge fuck-off swirling ball of ROCK, but he keeps it on a very tight lead to make it angrier. So if, as it would appear, the world is indeed going to hell, you could do worse than slap this on while you drug yourself into oblivion in front of CNN. Or alternatively listen to it to get yourself all fired up to actually do something about it. Whichever floats your boat, really. Either way, it makes a good soundtrack.
-Deuteronemu 90210, the awesome dude-
