MinistryAmeriKKKant

Uncle Al Jourgensen is telling the truth. Instagram is a lie. TV is a lie. News is a lie. Music is a lie. From when we wake to the blue glow of our phones and as it lulls us to sleep, we’re living inside a lie. Enter Al Jourgensen and the resurrected Ministry; though he insisted the band was done and dusted four years ago.

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Twilight Zone isn’t the middle ground between science and superstition as Rod Serling hoped, but a deafening trudge toward a meatgrinder, crushing bone and sinew not unlike Godflesh used to. Overflowing with soundbites and samples from Trump, Klan members, and other “deplorables,” balls-to-the-wall thrasher We’re Tired of It is wholesale Ministry. Burton C Bell helmed Wargasm is Ministry meets Fear Factory, as if Al plays mad alchemist, levelling off beakers and dashing saltpeter into cauldrons. (Joey Jordison plays drums on here too, but you’ll be damned if you notice.) That seems to be the biggest gripe here; it all feels too calculated to be really, truly angry.

[Is] Al Jourgensen desperate to get us “woke” enough to find a solution? Or is he capitalising on a rare opportunity? In an age where we question motives of almost everyone who does anything, who’s to say?

For all of Al’s explosions into rage, Jaz Coleman and Killing Joke did all of this six years ago. They did it six years ago, and it actually scared the shit out of people. Their landmark MMXII was all about grey skies and grey people frog-marching toward grey deaths. Up until 20 years ago, you could still subvert the media-industrial complex. In this era of fake news and shock-and-awe on demand, our brains are dining on media malware. If Trump says 2 + 2 is 4, his detractors will insist it’s 5. That’s how stupid the debate is now. Does that mean Al Jourgensen is desperate to get us “woke” enough to find a solution? Or is he capitalising on a rare opportunity? In an age where we question motives of almost everyone who does anything, who’s to say?

Here’s the hard facts: Uncle Al is pissed off. Uncle Al hates Trump. Uncle Al hates the ‘System.’ In an age where resistance is bought by the establishment and sold back to us as apps and t-shirts, you kind of have to admire Uncle Al for his persistence, if nothing else. So what’s this album? It’s still Ministry, but less so. Despite iron-forged cynicism, I kind of hope he succeeds in tearing the whole fucking thing down.

STANDOUT TRACKS: We’re Tired of It, Twilight Zone, Victims of a Clown
STICK THIS NEXT TO: Killing Joke (new), Godflesh, KMFDM