Ministry-The last sucker

13th Planet/Megaforce
2007

My interest in the Ministry has always been somewhat minimal. A lot of people liked them, but I normally got more into bands like Prong and Helmet who were less mechanical in their sound. I have heard some of the Ministry's songs over the years and even liked a few. Yet they never made enough of an impression on me to go and purchase one of their albums. The tagline accompanying this release as being “the final Ministry album” didn’t exactly reel me in either. It had me thinking of the kind of massive hype that normally surrounds the finale of long running sitcoms when they finally go of the air. Still when I had the chance to check this out I decided to give it a shot and I am glad that I did. When this band has hit, it’s always been because of a crunching straight ahead sound that at it’s best hits like a jackhammer. Fortunately this album is full of that type of approach as it easily kept my attention. By and large the music is fairly killer with just enough massive grinding music mixed with jarring sounds and noises to keep it interesting. It may slip into being slightly repetitive at times and that has always been one of major gripes about this band.That does take place on this album, but for the most part it moves along rather smoothly. The samples and sounds between tracks are a little distracting, but again that also minor because it’s normally brief. Al Jourgensen has managed to put together a fine swan song for his long time project. That is if indeed he does not resurrect the band at some point in the future.