Filth Pig - Ministry

Very few bands have committed commercial suicide quite as stylishly as Ministry did with this album. This was the follow up to their most commercially successful album Psalm 69, released in 1992. With 4 year wait between albums as Front man Al Jorgensen put it at this time he was living of DST (Dealer Central Time) which is about 6 months after everyone else, this and the fact the album was totally different to the metally Psalm 69.

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...within the band, in the wake of Kurt Cobains death admitting to using Heroin was a very bad thing. Also if we look at the musical climate at the time with Britt Pop at its peak, you have to admit that a dark heavy and uncompromising Album was not going to get rave reviews. Even the heavy metal press slated it, but what do music journalists know about music anyway.

The final factor in this albums unpopularity was that it was not Psalm ... more

Very few bands have committed commercial suicide quite as stylishly as Ministry did with this album. This was the follow up to their most commercially successful album Psalm 69, released in 1992. With 4 year wait between albums as Front man Al Jorgensen put it at this time he was living of DST (Dealer Central Time) which is about 6 months after everyone else, this and the fact the album was totally different to the metally Psalm 69.

On top of that their openness about the drug usage within the band, in the wake of Kurt Cobains death admitting to using Heroin was a very bad thing. Also if we look at the musical climate at the time with Britt Pop at its peak, you have to admit that a dark heavy and uncompromising Album was not going to get rave reviews. Even the heavy metal press slated it, but what do music journalists know about music anyway.

The final factor in this albums unpopularity was that it was not Psalm 70. Psalm 69 had been a great critical success and had significantly widened their fan base, but Ministry did not want to make an album that sounded identical to it. So ultra fast speed / thrash metal guitars were out.

Stylistically the album sounded a lot more like their 1989's "The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste". Guitars are very either trebbily or heavily detuned and distorted, bass lines purr down back alleys looking to either score or beat someone up, and drums pound. All the instruments are very clearly defined in the mix which is very wide and clean, giving a panoramic effect. This is especially noticeable with "Reload" and "Lava" which simply melts out of the speakers as a song called lava should. Again as demonstrated on "Lava" the use of synths is a lot more pronounced, not necessarily a good thing when you have just acquired a lot of metalers in your audience.

Having said that the use of synths possibly alienated a large proportion of their audience, I do think that this album upped the standard for bands making guitar based industrial rock. They moved on from simply ripping off heavy metal riffs to using truly unique and innovative guitar sounds like the wah wah effects on "Crumbs". Listening to some of the songs you can clearly hear guitars weave in and out of each other showing that heavy music does not need to lack subtly as was demonstrated on "Useless". "Dead Guy" also demonstrated this quite well.

One of the jewels in the crown is their Cover of Bob Dylan "Lay Lady Lay", with Paul Barkers detuned bass line driving the melody, backed with an acoustic guitar playing rhythm, and electric guitars weaving in and out of each other, back with subtle rhythm patterns in the back ground. This is possibly the best cover of a Dylan song ever.

Lyrically the album is as much inspired by the drug abuse that was rampant in the band at the time as the political situation at the time. Making it one of the best Heroin albums of all time (1). Though this is not necessarily a good thing considering the high quality and quantity of the material they have released in the last 2 years without the aid of heroin.

This was a great album and to me it was what I wanted from Psalm 69 4 years earlier. It picked up unwarranted criticism due to the musical climate at the time it was released and it remains one of my favorite albums of all time.

(1) Just to clarify my views on drug abuse and music here. Whilst drug abuse can and does stimulate creativity, it ultimately leads to the destruction of the talent and creativity that was naturally there. If you don't like the idea of drug abuse in music then follow Bill Hicks advice and burn all your albums, cause the musicians that made all those records that have inspired you, were made by guys that were really high on drugs.
 

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