Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
285: MINISTRY's HOPIUMFORTHEMASSES | Album Review
8 Plays7 months ago
Reviewing the new MINISTRY album 🙄 #ministry #hopiumforthemasses #industrialmetal PODCAST THEM DOWN - https://linktr.ee/pctd https://patreon.com/podcastthemdown
Recommended
![301: Star Trek "The City on the Edge of Forever" [S1E28] | Star Trek TOS Metal Rewatch image](https://media.zencastr.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=112,quality=85/image-files/63915535bf6eaf510963f644/37de7f59-18f5-4ef8-9f92-7ef9d50ac9a0.png)
Transcript
Tim's Evolving Metal Tastes
00:00:00
Speaker
Tim, I was thinking the other day, I've been into metal 20 some years now and I got into metal through industrial music and I used to really dig on the drum machines, the samples, the really repetitive guitar parts.
00:00:19
Speaker
I think I'm past that. It's just a different stage of life and I like the more organic metal
Introduction to Ministry's New Album
00:00:25
Speaker
now. Fuck you, Doug, because tonight on Podcast Them Down, we're reviewing the new ministry. Podcast Them Down! Shit, at least let me listen to it.
00:00:40
Speaker
the next day. Hail metal nation. This is podcasting down. I'm Tim. That's Doug. And now that he's listened to me, I'm going to check out the new ministry album entitled. Love you for the masses. One word. No spaces. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know where you want to start with this.
Ministry's Industrial Metal Legacy
00:01:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:08
Speaker
Like most ministry record titles are kind of punny. And this is like they did the compressed word thing, the 2003 album, which was animosity spelled forward and backward together. And I'm also so Mina. Well, the the 2021 album was moral hygiene. That's pretty good.
00:01:31
Speaker
That's pretty good. So is this an official review? Do I need to bring up the spreadsheet? Yes. I was thinking we should, we should expedite the official review format, not on the basis of any of the feedback we got, but just to make these go quicker. Let's not change the way, but let's give a combined score for all three acts and one number. Okay. So this is, this is our first review of 2024. If you can believe such a thing.
00:02:01
Speaker
So we're just going to give a music score, a presentation score and a trueness slash metal score. Yeah. The music music is three fifths. Oh, it's weighted. Okay. All right. Album. Uh, hope be young for the masses 2024. I assume.
Is Industrial Metal a Legitimate Genre?
00:02:20
Speaker
Right. Let me check my CD here. Yep. And you got the CD and this is industrial metal. I don't think there's any, uh, argument there.
00:02:30
Speaker
Yeah, I think that'll cover it. And this is metal line on effort date this releases. All right. All right. So yeah, let's just quickly answer the question, what is industrial metal? And is it metal? And yeah.
00:02:57
Speaker
That label was kind of thrown around a lot in the 90s, and you can kind of get to it from three ways to make it excessively complicated, right? You could be an electro-industrial band that does metal guitar parts. You could be a metal bed that leans into the sampling and electronic elements, and then post-punk is kind of floating around here too, killing joke, big black, the swans, all that.
00:03:26
Speaker
If you want a more straightforward answer to, is this metal? I'm not saying it's more accurate of an answer, but not only is it on metal archives, there is no justification for it being on metal archives.
Ministry's Musical Evolution
00:03:42
Speaker
Therefore, ministry is metal and industrial metal is metal. Yeah, well, you know, I had the answer to that question. I was looking at it and
00:03:54
Speaker
The part I was thinking is, is industrial metal even a real thing? And it definitively is. There's 1,300 industrial metal bands listed in metal archives. And of the first five or so I clicked on, they're all from the last decade or so, especially in Europe. So ministry is a
00:04:22
Speaker
Probably the original industrial metal band. I don't know if you remember Tim, but in our nearly 20 years of annoyance and grievances with metal archives, the ministry didn't used to be on there. Oh, I see. I don't remember this. That's something I whined about probably in 2005, 2006.
00:04:46
Speaker
And then it's the only band that I've seen the, you know, the night, the cabal of 19 year old Danish kids or whoever controls metal archives eats and crow and, uh, and put ministry on there after Rio grand blood, which was the 2006 album. That's pretty close to thrash. Yeah. So that is actually the last ministry album I listened to.
00:05:10
Speaker
And they were doing Slayer sound better than Slayer was at the time, like the new Slayer sound, where Slayer just got terrible and unlistenable. Ministry actually took that idea and made it listenable. Yeah, it's funny. The song New Religion on this record is like Slayer played at half tempo.
00:05:40
Speaker
So yeah, really quick run through a ministry. I guess my wall, my rant about industrial metal. Ministry is probably one of the few bands that is really could be called a hybridized form of the genre, like really both at once. I'd say a lot of the bands that tend to lean very heavily on one side or the other. Fear Factory would be another kind of hybrid.
00:06:08
Speaker
But ministry started off as a new wave band in 83, their seminal new wave record with sympathy for goth. In 85, they released Every Day is Halloween, a seminal single, and then Twitch, which was electro-industrial. Then they introduced metal guitar riffs in the land of rape and honey, probably their breakthrough record.
00:06:37
Speaker
It's a really fucked up record to listen to again and again and again and whooping. I remember I once had to drive to Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, and that was the only cassette I had in the car. Oh, no. Puts you in a weird mood after a while. And then we get, mind is a terrible thing to taste. By the way, terrible name for a zombie metal album. Horrendous. So I thoroughly disagree with
00:07:07
Speaker
that album title. All right, go on. Well, and then the next record is the Psalm 69, which is probably their commercial high points and mind and Psalm are with the industrial metal label, especially got to be thrown around. But I would argue they were really
00:07:30
Speaker
more of a industrial or post-punk kind of band that utilized metal guitar riffs. Like the terrible, my just terrible thing to taste touring lineup consisted of 10 people, including two drummers and three guitarists. I saw on Wikipedia, they were listed recently as having turntables. There are two turntable lists.
00:07:59
Speaker
Yeah, well, I'll touch on that in a second. Yeah, that was not a high point. Yeah, so then the Filthpig and Darkspoon, which were their 90s kind of alternative albums that were more rock based and Filthpig was the first record sort of recorded as a band and with the guitars recorded live instead of constructed later out of loops.
00:08:28
Speaker
and animosity in there too. And there was 2004 with Houses of the Mole, where they turned into a metal band. Now, I'll cover it in the metal factor section, but they gratuitously started adopting all of our rules then out of nowhere. So I'd argue that's when they turned into a metal band. It wasn't Psalm 69. Yeah, and then there's the George Bush trilogy, three good albums.
00:08:58
Speaker
Then they broke up and I wanted them to stay broken up, but they didn't. They came back with relapse, which a good song about killing Osama bin Laden. It was okay.
Recent Albums Review
00:09:10
Speaker
Then from beer to eternity is when I completely checked out.
00:09:17
Speaker
I'm sure it has a cheeky title and cover in some ironic way, but just grandpa Al pulling a cage of naked women. I'm just like, fuck this. I'm too old to care about any of this. Then came their low point, which was Americaant. See what he did there?
00:09:41
Speaker
That's when they brought back more layered sound and the industrial elements and electric cellos and a DJ and turned up total shit. That was 2018 maybe. Then they had a surprising return to form a few years ago with moral hygiene, which again, more electronic.
00:10:07
Speaker
based than they had been doing, but actually good. And now we come to Hopium for the masses, which kind of has elements of all of their sounds all at once.
Track List and Guest Musicians
00:10:20
Speaker
But let's get into that. All right. All right. So came out March 1st, 2024.
00:10:29
Speaker
Industrial metal length, 42 minutes, 37 seconds. Nuclear blast, which is a metal label, produced by Al Jorgensen. Track list. I don't know if I want to say a lot of... BDE, Goddamn White Trash, Just Stop Oil, Aryan Embarrassment, TV song 1-6th. 1-slash-6th. Is that supposed to be 1-6th?
00:10:54
Speaker
January 6th, January 6th edition. Okay. New religion. It's not pretty cult of suffering. And then the version I listened to, I don't know if this is on all of them as a fad gadget cover of Ricky's hand. Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's at the end of the CD too. Yeah. That's how it's a cover. That explains it. Yep. So it's, uh, Al Jorgensen, Jorgensen, whatever. Cesar, Cesar Soto, Monte Pittman, Paul Damore.
00:11:25
Speaker
John Bechdel and Roy Mayorga on drums. Everyone else has like, it's these track credits are ridiculous. And we're going to have to go credit or add track by track. Yeah. Yeah. So for example, Cesar Soto played guitars on tracks two through seven and bass on two through six, but not exclusively.
00:11:52
Speaker
Well, I just want to call out the eclectic nature of this band. We'll talk about the eclectic guest musicians during the songs. But so Monte Pittman, the lead guitarist, is the guitarist for Madonna, Adam Lambert, Prong, and Ministry. So a metal guy who's played for Madonna for two decades or something.
00:12:21
Speaker
Caesar Soto comes from pissing razors and some El Paso groove metal type bands. John Bechtel, the keyboardist, plugged him before. He's been a murder ink, killing joke, prong, fear factory, ministry. He's the keyboardist for a very small square of music. He's been in all the big bands of this style. The bassist comes from Tool.
00:12:51
Speaker
the first record, and then the drummer is from the Allentown punk band Nausea and Sepultura and Soulfly and associated bands. And then it's produced by Michael, or engineered, excuse me, by Michael Rosin throughout, who also does programming and backup vocals, background vocals. All right, so track one, BDE.
00:13:20
Speaker
Perfectly fine, late-stage ministry song, opening track, four-minute something, same old, agitprop, lyrics and tone. If it's stridently leftist and annoying, that's really the point. I'd say you could take 45 seconds or so off of the end, but it's a pretty good song. Yeah, and as an opener, it didn't grab me as well as
00:13:50
Speaker
New World Order on the last ministry album I listened to, you know, but, uh, they, there's a, there's a really weird guitar part in there, which I don't think I've ever heard from the style. I mean, like all of it is just very, the song in particular is just very, here's a riff and then we're gonna, you know, with the, with the,
00:14:20
Speaker
They're just like shout things with the delay on it. Yeah. And probably half these songs have, you know, or live or recorded drums, half is programmed drums. I'd say these with the actual drums sound better.
00:14:42
Speaker
Yeah, it's our credits. There's Al, Grandpa Al's lead vocalist, keyboards, Monte Pitman, guitar, bass, background vocals, Roy Mayorga, drums, and additional engineering, meaning he recorded his own drums. And yeah, the producer did programming and background vocals.
Musical Elements and Guest Contributions
00:15:03
Speaker
All right. Are these samples? Because they're samples. Like, are they, are they like reconstructed?
00:15:12
Speaker
I think most of these are real. I think, yeah, White Zombie famously reconstructed all the samples on the 1995 record because of the lawsuit involving public enemy that changed some people's perceptions around fair use. But I think these are mostly from public figures and public speeches. I believe they're mostly real.
00:15:39
Speaker
I'm glad we live into the, in the future where it's, I forget if, if it happens some more, but they take the sample and like put it on the tempo, which is neat. That would have been really hard to do in the last 20 years, but. Cassette days or tape days. Yeah. Now it's very easy to do. Yeah. And, uh, credit we're due throughout, but the programming is very good.
00:16:08
Speaker
And now they wear the different sonic elements. All right, so next up is Goddamn White Trash with Al on vocals, guitars and key. Vocals by Pepper Keenan of corrosion and conformity. That's neat. And then it's the rest of the band and the engineer usual. I'm not going to read it every song. This song is fine.
00:16:36
Speaker
Kind of a sample heavy opening than standard four minutes of ministry. Yeah, I feel like it made its point halfway through and it just felt like I was ready to move on after that middle synth thing. Yeah, that's fair. It's like a solo type thing. I don't even know what you would call that. The synth lead, the computer noises.
00:17:05
Speaker
All right, that's all. So it's fine. And then we have Just Stop Oil, which is standard ministry issues song. Yeah, like all of this is just like, I'm not saying this in a bad way, but this whole album is exactly what I expected for the most part, because it's just like serving you the ministry sound. Here it is again. Yeah, these first few songs are definitely
00:17:34
Speaker
the ministry you expect by numbers and not in a bad way. The back half's a little more interesting in both good and bad ways. The only thing I would say about Just Stop Oil is the guitar lead is like oddly surf music. It's a surf lead. And maybe there's something in the lyrics I'm missing, but it just stuck out to me.
00:17:59
Speaker
Yeah, the the surf guitar part is cool. And yeah, otherwise another sample heavy. It's a little more synthy than the the first two songs but but catchy and possibly a bit long but strong for what it is. Alright, so Aryan embarrassment about the
00:18:24
Speaker
resurgence of Nazism and right wing politics globally. Is that what you got from the song? I don't know. I don't think it was very clear. Oh, oh, humor. Yeah. Yeah. Well, where's my laughter?
00:18:46
Speaker
The usual Jell-O biophora of the Dead Kennedys tends to do a song on most of these late-stage ministry records. So here's a song here. They famously said, Nazi punks fuck off. So very on brand. It's fine. Again, four for four in exactly what you expect. Yeah, I think they could have shaved a few minutes off this one too.
00:19:15
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. And I don't mind the all the Jell-O be off for songs. I tend not to like some, but it's fine. There's a good wake up and smell the musk. That was a good line at the very randomly on guitar in the song is the guitarist for Billy Idol. What? OK.
00:19:45
Speaker
All right, next we get TV song, the January 6th edition.
Diverse Tracks and Influences
00:19:54
Speaker
So the TV song has been, I think this is the sixth or seventh of these. I think starting with Psalm 69, it's just a kind of a speed metal, very up tempo, very sample and clanky sound driven songs, all of them.
00:20:14
Speaker
And this is exactly as advertised. It's fine. Yeah. I have nothing to add. Yeah. That's just the band on it. Then new religion. Uh, and I actually cannot, I, I interpreted this to be about social media or, or the new world order and door.
00:20:37
Speaker
Fanning the flames for profit, online discourse. I've also heard it described as being about the rise of radical religion. So I don't know. But it's half speed slayer. It is. That's exactly what it is. Yeah, it's pretty good. Again, probably a minute too long, but perfectly fine. Just credited to the band.
00:21:05
Speaker
Then we get- Right. Next, it becomes a Nine Inch Nails album. Yeah, we get it's not pretty. This is still okay, but it's probably the low point on the album. It sounds kind of like I have a half big KM FDM, but that's probably just the female choral type vocals.
00:21:29
Speaker
Yeah, they put this song here on purpose. Yeah, that's exactly where you put this. And it's not bad, actually. It's grown on me in preparing for this review. It's kind of jazzy, but all synthesized. Again, another very sample-driven song. A criticism of this record I've seen people make is that
00:21:54
Speaker
the relatively light presence of Al Jorgensen delivering vocals, which is fine. That's a plus. So yeah, it takes a little bit of the energy out, but it is different at least. Then we get to Cult of Suffering, which is a anti-Putin pro-Ukraine song featuring
Pro-Ukraine Message in 'Cult of Suffering'
00:22:21
Speaker
I forget the guy's name. Vocalist to New York punk band. They call himself Gypsy Punk, Eugene Huts of... Oh yeah, there it is. Yeah, Eugene Huts, Gypsy Punk. Where's the name of the... It says he plays guitar, vocals, and fire bucket.
00:22:51
Speaker
Like, which is literally a bucket. It's like Gudel Bordello. And I don't want to repeat things on Wikipedia without knowing the veracity of them. But at least according to that, there's some interesting controversy of the gypsy identity and whether they can claim that in the music and whether gypsy punk is a real thing. So we take no position.
00:23:20
Speaker
This is the third disparate mention of Gypsy to me today because I watched Borat and I watched Hot Fuzz, which the townspeople murdered a bunch of travelers in Hot Fuzz. Oh, spoiler alert. I gave away like two thirds, a surprise, two thirds of the way into the movie. Anyway, and they referred to them as such and now this.
00:23:48
Speaker
I actually like this song. It's got a good groove. It's got a weird 70s vibe to it. Departure from the rest of the album. It's not bad. It's different. Yeah. And, you know, I think we endorse the message.
00:24:08
Speaker
Yeah, it's kind of my wife with a thrill kill call. I think the last song or the last couple of songs in the last sucker from 2008 had a similar vibe. But yeah, they did a good job. And then last up is Ricky's Hand, a trippy electro pop song, kind of psychedelic, kind of Devo-ish.
Album Conclusion and Cover Song
00:24:34
Speaker
And there's no printed lyrics, which makes sense because it's a cover. Yeah. I think this originally came out in 1980. It was a new wave song and they, they ministryified it, but they didn't like turn it all the way up. They turned it up to like 60, you know?
00:24:56
Speaker
Yeah, the electronics are impressive. I think it's like power drills and the way they work in the guitar riff, much less pronounced, but driving in there is good. Yeah, it's kind of trippy sounding. It's fine. And that concludes the music. OK, so I guess we want to throw a number on there then.
Overall Album Scores
00:25:27
Speaker
I don't want to go this high, but I'm going with eight. No, seven and a half. Seven and a half. I can't do that. This is not my thing. I feel like I wouldn't ever actively seek this out.
00:25:50
Speaker
Like I said, it's not my thing. But that being said, it's not to the point where I'd turn it off if it came on. It's like, oh, it's this. So to that end, I'm going to give it a 5.5. Yeah, that's fair. And I'll say the reviews are interestingly divided on this. It's a grower, though. I did not like this record at first.
00:26:18
Speaker
The side one is very ministry by numbers or weight ministry by numbers. And then side two just seemed like crap, but side two especially grows on you. So check it out. It's better than American and along the same lines as moral hygiene, probably not as good, but more metal.
00:26:44
Speaker
I got the reviews for the three reviews on Metal Archives here. He got 40%, 65%, and 80%. And the 65% said, at least it's not AmeriCant.
00:27:04
Speaker
I, in that very first review, read the description of the sound. In, at least it's not American't. I think it's the first one that populates. It's an election year and you know what that means. It's time for another new ministry album. Is it going to be underwhelming? Of course it is. That's funny. No, there's a good,
00:27:31
Speaker
something about fetal alcohol syndromes mentioned in the review. I found it. The best way I can describe this album is the, this is my country destroyer, by the way, on metal archives. The best way I can describe this album is the illegitimate child of the last sucker and astro creep 2000 that was born from the semen of americant and also as fetal alcohol syndrome.
00:27:59
Speaker
That's funny. And I will say, to a surprising degree, possibly this album aside, because the sample size is so low, Metal Archives is right on in the scoring of all those ministry records. Yeah, we're going to have to give this one some time, but it also says he... Oh, where'd it go? It's a half-baked psychedelic approach to industrial metal that doesn't fully commit.
00:28:27
Speaker
That's filth big. Yeah. That guy who reviewed everything we kept looking at didn't review it yet. He'll get there. All right, so we scored the music. Now we got to score the artwork. Yeah, presentation. I hate the cover.
Artwork and Visuals
00:28:52
Speaker
I don't get it.
00:28:54
Speaker
I guess so that there's the cover world. Yeah, so it's doing like it's a statue doing a face palm with weed and mushrooms growing out of his head.
00:29:06
Speaker
I suppose that being the hopium. And the ministry logo was like pitifully small at the center bottom of the artwork and hopium for the masses. One word is in all caps Helvetica across the top. Also pretty small.
00:29:28
Speaker
Yeah, so we got the back cover, looks like some ancient stock image of Times Square, and you got the band sort of pasted over them. And this like photo collage with like Xerox copy edits is very...
00:29:48
Speaker
very much the Ministry House aesthetic. You know, the music is a throwback and so is the back cover, I guess. Yeah, the overall presentation, I do agree with you on the cover and the CD's got mushrooms on it and the tray art is mushrooms that look like penises, especially so and then a
00:30:16
Speaker
Angry Mob. Well, January 6th. I bet you could sell that to Dave as a fish CD if you cover up the word ministry. Hey, bro, I got you a CD. I'm going to wait like three of those songs for Psychedelic. I dropped my copy. I don't have mine in reach. So how, it looks like a full booklet.
00:30:41
Speaker
It is a full booklet and we, I think we endorse this as a podcast, but we do get song specific artwork. I like that. I like for every song. Yeah. Hopium for the masses. Psychedelic center page. It seems like they fully, that review said they didn't fully commit on the psychedelics, but it looks like they committed in the book, at least.
00:31:11
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, Al Jorgensen has famously nearly died multiple times as a result of his many addictions. He may be over now. Who knows? I think I was reading something that says he's going to do one more album and then stop. But he also said that before this album. Yeah, they've broken up.
00:31:39
Speaker
At least three times. Well, they've also been around for 40 years, 41 years. More than that. They formed an 81. 81. Yeah, their first tour was with Flock of Seagulls, Depeche Mode, and Culture Club. I'm picturing ministry now touring with Flock of Seagulls then, and that's a great image.
00:32:06
Speaker
Well, it's funny you bring that up because there, what's it called? There's a festival. I wrote it down. I'll probably go do it, but there's like a dark pop music festival, cruel world festival that happens yearly. Duran Duran has had a lot to get this year and Ministry is there only playing songs from the first two records.
00:32:34
Speaker
Where is that fest? Pasadena, California. Well, that's too expensive for me for us to request a media pass. Yeah, there's no real medal on it. I don't think ministry will be playing medal.
00:32:56
Speaker
Could be, they did play it last year actually, playing metal, so. Yeah, but that is the story that we're there protesting the fact that ministry is not playing metal. Yeah. That's all right. It could be Psalm 69. Yeah. Yeah. Book this. Okay, so presentation, like I said, don't like the cover, intrigued by the throwback aspect. I like that they have a book.
00:33:25
Speaker
You know, so once again, I'm going to give this a 5.5. Yeah, I mean, this is all ministry by numbers. It's a six. You know, it's fine. They do thank the Chicago Blackhawks. And I forgot they wrote a theme song for the Blackhawks a while back. I think it's called Key to the City. Was this before or after the scandal?
00:33:50
Speaker
2007. So it was while the scandal was occurring, but no one knew about it. Got it. Yes. All right. All right. So our final score.
Final Score and Closing Remarks
00:34:01
Speaker
We got a developmental factor. Yes. Yes. The trueness. The final piece we need to score, I should say, is the trueness slash metalness. I mean, I'll say if ministry just did
00:34:15
Speaker
industrial thrash or whatever would make this super metal, they wouldn't be being ministry. So in that sense, they're not metal, but they are gratuitously following our codes and have been ever since they turned metal, quote unquote, in 2004. They've used a consistent logo.
00:34:41
Speaker
even though the grotesque block font ministry logo from the 90 was iconic. They don't use that. They use a more complicated metal one. And their shit lyrics were never printed in the books until they turned into a metal band in 2004. And now they print their lyrics because that's what metal does. So I think it's a point for me for following our rules. It's a five.
00:35:12
Speaker
Perfectly neutral. They are, they're being true to their own sound. You know, like you said, it's by numbers, but that's what metalheads want. They want the same thing over and over and over and over again. And they pretend they don't want that. And then when bands do that, they complain. So I think that's very metal. They have taken a very,
00:35:38
Speaker
strong stance on various issues, that in itself is metal. There's not too much innovation and that is metal. So there's a lot of metal things going on. However, it's still all psychedelic and mushrooms and stuff. So I can't give it more than a six. So I will give it a six metal score. You gave it a five.
00:36:06
Speaker
Well, I have to call them out, uh, like, uh, on BDE and all, I mean, they're, they're, they're applying their, their toxic left wing masculinity to toxic right wing masculinity, you know, without much thought in the possible parallels. So advocating, uh, you know, overstating, advocating violence, all that very metal. That is metal.
00:36:36
Speaker
All right. Well, that, that gives the final score for this album, 5.92, which is always, we say it now out now. Yeah. I think in 2024. Yeah. We're transparent. You, you call it a salad. We're delivering. You don't have to do your own math anymore. You're welcome. You're welcome. Metal nation. By the way, the, the best CD of last year was Jack Panzers, the hallowed according to our scoring.
00:37:06
Speaker
Oh, is that in the nines? Almost. 8.94 followed by 72 seasons. All right. There you have it, Metal Nation. We will have more reviews coming and the numbers to accompany you to accompany them. But until next time, keep your world order new.
00:37:37
Speaker
Cast... Them... Down! God dammit, enough! I gotta go, now!