Ministry Uses Up Their Last Bit of Fuel

Jourgensen’s approach is no longer as sample-happy as it was in the days of his strongest work, but he does seem to have regained some of the frenzied urgency and captured it with a crack band of collaborators. His messages have never been very deep, and to hear him rail against the present administration as he does isn’t exactly illuminating, but Ministry has never really been about the message. With them, it’s what the music evokes, the moods it plumbs, and the effect it can have on the listener.

And this is where the album really succeeds. While the last few discs have certainly been noisy enough, they didn’t make us want to rev up a chainsaw, jump on a chopper, and dive headfirst into a mosh pit, all at the same time. For a while we were wondering if we, or Jourgensen, had just growing too old for that sort of thing. The Last Sucker shows that the potential was always there, just waiting to surface again.

There are a few weaker points, like the formulaic speed metal of “No Glory” disappoints, and “End Of Days Part 2” comes across as an Andrew WK tribute song that lasts about 9 minutes too long. But skip those and center on goodies like the hypertensive “Let’s Go,” the darkly funny “The Dick Song” (about our very own VP), and the surprisingly decent cover of The Doors’ “Roadhouse Blues” (we know, what?!).

The band could have gone out like a suburban metalhead too caught up in his own licks to notice no one was listening anymore, but instead they decided to finish their career with a roadster destroying bang of a fireball. Well done Mr. Jourgensen, well done.