### Ministry: Rio grande blood

#### 30/03/06 || Statik Majik

Al Jourgensen hates president Bush and his government. And their actions all around the world. If you ever need a reminder about that, here’s 10 of them (again, I’m not counting hidden tracks). Now that we got the lyrical content of this album pretty much covered (in two sentences even), I wonder what else there is to say about Ministry’s latest release?

“Rio Grande Blood” continues where “Houses of the molé” left, I think that’s a pretty safe statement. It doesn’t differ that much from it either, but the little differences found here surely make it better than it’s predecessor. It’s heavier, sometimes faster and definitely much angrier than “Houses of the molé” was. I think the fact that Bush was re-elected has something to do with the latter. Production-wise, Ministry always delivered top-notch stuff and I guarantee you that “Rio Grande Blood” continues this tradition. Sounds purrrr-fect, I tell you.

One thing I’ve always liked about Ministry is that you could count on them sounding like.. well, themselves. Sure, they do things differently on each and every album, but the Ministry-sound is always present. And so are all of the elements Ministry is in love with. Samples of George W. Bush and whatnot, together with electronics/industrial parts, Al yelling all over the place, catchy guitar-riffs here and there. And all this is spiced up with more than energetic drumming. Yes, that does sound like Ministry, doesn’t it?

Since I’m not going to do a track-by-track analysis here, I’ll leave it by stating that “Rio Grande Blood” is a solid fucken material and definitely a recommended buy for any Ministry-fan. Judging by the given score you can probably tell that I don’t totally disagree with Ministry’s lyrics. Even though I’m sure they could do kick-ass songs with a little less politics in them as well.

8/10.

- Information
- Released: 2006
- Label: 13th Planet Records
- Website: www.ministrymusic.org
- Band
- Alien Jourgensen: vocals, guitars, programming
- Tommy Victor: guitars
- Paul Raven: bass
- Mark Baker: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Rio Grande Blood
- 02. Señor Peligro
- 03. Gangreen
- 04. Fear (Is big business)
- 05. Lieslieslies
- 06. The great Satan remix
- 07. Yellow cake
- 08. Palestina
- 09. Ass clown
- 10. Khyber pass