Amerikkkant

Album review

Released in 2013, From Beer to Eternity should have been the thirteenth and last album from Al Jourgensen’s band, the latter notably invoking the brutal passing of the guitarist Mike Scaccia as the major reason for the end of an adventure that lasted more than 32 years. The one that many consider as the creator of industrial metal (indus to your friends) turned the page to devote himself to his many other activities, among which the speed metal band Surgical Meth Machine or his incarnation as a superhero in the comic book Ministry: The Devil's Chord - The Chronicles of Alien F. Jourgensen, not forgetting the other projects that can come back to life overnight without warning (Revolting Cocks, Buck Satan, Lard...). But the election of the current President of the United States, which was predicted by this musician that has always been engaged, was a game changer. This album could be subtitled “Make Ministry great again”, even if we’re not sure we should thank Donald Trump for this “success”. His head-on opposition to Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. having left a mark on the golden days of Ministry, Jourgensen has dug up all his panache, his creativity and his skill for this new fight in which he joins Prophets Of Rage, Suicidal Tendencies and a few others.

 In line with the corrosive Antifa that the band had revealed during the summer of 2017 at the Hellfest, rarely music and lyrics had found a balance with such vehemence and cynicism. AmeriKKKant is a true declaration of war to stupidity and populism, and Jourgensen does not hesitate to instill the album with chosen extracts from speeches by the one of whom he said unfortunately “shared the same absurd ideas as three Americans out of four”. But, to better reinforce his point, he particularly polished the packaging, the production being at least as rich and sophisticated as the one from the monumental Psalm 69, and this as soon as the intro of I Know Words, with his deft montage of sinister violin, of a Bromazepam-filled hip hop version of Trump’s tirades. On the entirety of the album, and most of all on the titles lasting more than eight minutes (Twilight Zone, Victims Of A Clown, AmeriKKKa), Ministry frees himself of all codes without losing an instantly identifiable style. Often close to the best Killing Joke’s finds, he successfully ventures into all kinds of directions, making coexist with insolence the most disparate elements. On each of the eight tracks, it’s a skillfully organized deluge of the craziest ideas, and not only well-chosen samples. Here, trash rhythms are backed by tribal rhythms; there, scratch effects rub shoulders with tortured solos; and elsewhere, a massive bass accompanies harmonica lines; enumerating all of them would be too long… There opens a new era for the band and those who will follow, the era of a style that we could label as “prog idus”. A tell-tale sign: the sand-papered throat of Jourgensen, the “indus Lemmy”, has never been more convincing. Ministry reaches new heights here! © Jean-Pierre Sabouret/Qobuz