Artist: "Ministry"
Album: "Filth Pig"
Genre: Alternative Rock
Label: Warner Bros. Records
Reviewer: -RoG-
Posted: 3/9/2009
Review: I've been a fan of Ministry for quite a long time, and while I admittedly haven't kept up with their more recent works, I always find myself going back to their tunes I grew up on. Sometimes it's the 80s synth pop "With Sympathy", other times it's the relentlessly aggressive "Psalm 69". But there's one album that I always felt never got a fair shot - "Filth Pig".
Filth Pig was doomed from the start as far as I'm concerned because it came on the success of "Psalm 69" - an album that really brought the band more into the mainstream. But how do you follow-up such a hyper-agressive album like that? You can either do more of the same in an attempt to appease the masses clamoring for that same speedy madness, or you can continue to evolve your music. Al Jourgensen decided to play things risky and chose the later.
If the phrase "Filth Pig" gives you an image of a swine slowly trudging its way through a mud pit, that would probably be a great way to describe the sound of the album. The music has been slowed down big time and it has a far more raw feeling than their previous release. And while the overall pace of the album is very different, it's still undeniably Ministry. Dark, brooding, sludgy, heavy as hell and yet somehow still completely catchy. If you don't find yourself bobbing your head to the rhythm of a track like "Lava" and "Dead Guy", there's something wrong with you.
While Filth Pig isn't stuffed to the rim with samples and speed, it still has that great Ministry sound which will forever separate them from other musical acts out there. It's the band getting band to basics with more traditional instruments, almost purposely distancing themselves from the "industrial" genre that was often used to describe them. Give Filth Pig a chance and you might be surprised at just how solid it really is.
Overall rating:
(Scored on a 0.5 - 5 pickles rating: 0.5 being the worst and 5 being the best)