Ministry

Adios...

Written by: PP on 03/04/2009 14:22:13

Ministry need no introduction, but here's one anyway. They are the biggest, best, and most influential industrial rock band of all time, having sold millions upon millions of records world wide. They've always been fiercely critical of any government in the United States, but especially the Bush administration. Their songs are riddled with vocal samples from presidents and other public figures, combined in derogatory ways such as George W. saying "I am a terrorist. I am a dangerous, dangerous man". And that's fine, because that's what Ministry has stood for as long as I can remember listening to Al Jourgensen's antics. Two years ago in 2007, the band released "The Last Sucker", which received much publicity because the band made it very clear that it would be their final studio album. Al Jourgensen was getting old and wanted to retire the band while they were still relevant, which is an applaudable attitude in itself. But what I don't understand is if that was meant to be their last record, then why was the cover album "Cover Up" released last year? And why is it necessary to milk the cash-cow even further with the release of "Adios", a live album which has been so deceivingly produced that if it wasn't for the familiar song titles on the record, I would never have noticed the difference between it and Ministry's studio albums.

The problem lies that whoever was responsible for recording the performance apparently thought that including any crowd response was secondary to making the songs sound as good as possible (read: identical to their studio albums). There isn't single moment where you can hear the crowd cheer, clap, sing along (not that such thing really happens at Ministry shows), or anything of the sort. Okay, that was a lie, because there are a couple of moments, but they're so faded back that if you aren't paying 100% attention, you wouldn't ever recognize them for being the crowd. The instruments do have a slight echo to them, but don't they already feature a similar pounding sound on the studio albums already? Ministry play industrial metal, after all. So that begs one question to be asked: what's the point? Why should you purchase this disc if you already have these songs on record? It's not like there's any funny between-songs banter, which makes NOFX albums worth every penny, for instance.

5

Download: No W, Lieslieslies
For the fans of: Ministry
Listen: Myspace

Release date 01.04.2009
AFM Records

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