Ministry - The Last Sucker Review

Ministry's career, spanning 25 years and 12 studio albums, can be divided into four periods—early synth pop (With Sympathy, 12" Singles, Twitch), industrial (The Land of Rape and Honey, The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste, Psalm 69), grungy metal (Filth Pig, Dark Side of the Spoon, Animositisomina), and an anti-Bush trilogy (Houses of the Molé, Rio Grande Blood, The Last Sucker). The industrial period cemented Ministry's reputation, yielded their only platinum album (Psalm 69), and is by far their most lauded; the collective memory of Ministry generally stops after Psalm 69. However, hindsight will prove each succeeding release creative and vital. The Last Sucker is Ministry's final album, and best since Psalm 69....full text With The Last Sucker Al Jourgensen not only brings his anti-Bush Jr trilogy of albums to a close, but he also shutters the Ministry band/project/death machine for good. Of course Ministry has always been a free-flowing thing -- a dark synth pop outfit that eventually morphed into an aggressive, guitar-heavy beast with a few genre jumps in-between. Jourgensen's side project Revolting Cocks could have been mistaken for Ministry on their 2006 album Cocked and Loaded so there's a good chance that whatever this crazed Texan throws his name on might as well be Ministry, barring any future side projects that are as far out as Acid Horse or Lard....full text Ever since Ministry started in 1981 with an EP of pure techno music (Cold Life), there has always been an edge to de-facto leader of all things Ministry, Al Jourgensen. The techno side of him gave him one strong CD (1986’s Twitch), but after that, Uncle Al had a hankering for the dark side of music. He kept the techno aspect of dancing capabilities, but he was the face of the new “industrial revolution”. This movement grew over the course of time to such huge proportions that it spawned such success stories as Skinny Puppy and Nine Inch Nails....full text