Saturday, July 21, 2007

Ministry - The Last Sucker (2007)

After more than two decades, pioneering metallic industrialists Ministry have issued their final studio album, The Last Sucker. It completes the triumvirate of Bush blasting that began with Houses of the Molé and continued with last years blinding Rio Grande Blood with another politically charged industrial riff party.

Well, for starters, it sounds like Ministry. You know what to expect. Sadly however, there appears to be a certain degree of complacency throughout the album. Accusations of Rio Grande Blood 2.0 would be well founded, but it comes across as more of a 0.5. Pedestrian riffage permeates throughout the album, many of which wouldn't sound out of place on one of Fear Factory's less popular albums. Thats not to say you won't be banging your head, its still an album to get booked for speeding to. It's just that the filthy aggression prevalent in RGB seems to be missing. Of course the distorted as fuck vocals are unchanged, as is the dirty electro drumming. There's just an overall feeling of a band going through the motions one last time.

Its not all bad though. The title track gives off a strong 80s industrial vibe and the pounding southern rawk of 'Roadhouse Blues' kicks the aggression back up a notch. The album highlight and closing track 'End Of Days Part Two' is a sprawling epic, bearing some similarity to NINs 'Just Like You Imagined'. Complete with soaring guitar lines, child choir chorus and a Burton C. Bell sounding more like Pepper Keenan it definitely ends the album on a high.

It might sound like a band going through the motions, but Ministry at half pace is still more than most bands at full tilt. Not their worst and certainly not a career ending duff note, but not quite up to the standard they (re)set themselves with RGB.

7/10

2 comments:

HEYMAN said...

Ministry have sort of 'sucked' for a while now. Lack of passion.

Githzerai said...

Yeah. Really, if this wasn't Ministry it would get a 5 or a 6, but I couldn't bare to score them that low.