Global Domination | Reviews | Ministry: The mind is a terrible thing to taste

Recent updates

Recent discussions

Reviews

Ministry: The mind is a terrible thing to taste

03/07/09 || Smalley

Now this is more like it; after struggling throughout the 1980’s to find the sound that he wanted for Ministry, and somewhat going down the wrong path during the first half of the 90’s (read my “Psalm 69” review for a partial explanation of that), Al Jourgensen finally managed to achieve, if but briefly, an almost perfect balance between the electronic music he started out with, and the heavy metal he was heading for, with 1989’s “The mind is a terrible thing to taste”.

“Thieves” makes for an excellent beginning, with its stop-start, machine-precision thrashing, cold, mechanical sound effects, samples taken from Full Metal Jacket/The War At Home, and of course, Al’s angry, distorted vocals, all of which make the track an excellent example of industrial metal done right. The thin sound of the riffing on “Thieves” actually makes it pretty catchy, and provides a relatively easy entry point to the dark, inhuman soundscape that Ministry created for “mind”. “Burning inside” then keeps the album going strong, with lively percussion work (hard to believe that it’s a drum machine) and vivid lyrics about drug addiction, rendered all the more effective by Al’s heavily warped, drowned-out vocals: “Calming the mantra with a blade in his skin/For the demons within!/I feel the pain as we start to decay/But the lesson never fades away…”.

After that, “Never believe” and “Cannibal song” make up what I like to call the “deranged funhouse tracks” of “mind”, with frequent Ministry collaborator Chris Connelly giving demented, screwy-in-the-head lead vocals on both songs (he reminds me of Mark Hamill’s Joker on “Cannibal”). His performance, combined with the creepy sounds used on these tracks (such as the sinister bass guitar and eerie saxophone of “Cannibal”), give you the aural feeling of being forced through some insane carnival ride, with Connelly watching and taunting you all the while as a sadistic barker.

“Breathe” turns out to be the first track that fails to satisfy; it starts out okay, but never really takes off (besides a cool chorus vocals part four minutes in, that is), and is overly repetitive as well. In sound, “Breathe” reminds me of “Burning inside” a bit, only… not interesting. Darn. “So what” is even more repetitive than “Breathe” (and should’ve ended at least a minute earlier than it does), but is definitely the better song, with the surprise of a lengthy monologue taken from the Ed Wood(!) penned B-movie “The Violent Years”, as well as more passionate, more involved vocalwork from Al and catchier songwriting overall.

Sadly, there’s one last weak track waiting for us (and is it ever so weak), in “Test”. For some reason, Ministry thought it would be okay to let an inept, annoying nobody-rapper called “The Grand Wizard” (lovely name) to spit out stuff like “You say this when I say that/But I’m not with that/So step back or kiss my-/Cuz I won’t be held back/So don’t fight or dis or piss me off/Cuz I’m not soft or weak…”, and give him the appropriate back-up music (i.e. dated, generic dance hall pap, with really annoying “scratching” as well) for such rapping. Grand Wizard tries to come off as being somewhat “hard”, succeeds at that about as well as Will Smith could, and makes as much sense within the overall scheme of “mind” as Big Willie would too. Seriously Al, what the hell were you thinking here? Were you thinking at all? Consider this one deleted off of my iTunes library, pronto.

“Faith collapsing” fortunately manages to re-rail this train, and beats out “Thieves” for my favorite track on the album, with its endless (but brilliantly-used) parade of samples, extremely catchy bass line, and… well, there’s not much more to it than that. So, it’s kind of hard to describe the appeal of “Faith collapsing”, as the song is just one of those things that have be experienced to truly be appreciated. But again, it’s beyond a shadow of a doubt awesome. Finally, “mind” ends with “Dream song”, which manages to create an atmosphere that’s both ethereal and scary at the same time (I’ll spare the specifics to keep from spoiling it), and perhaps only the second song I’ve heard in my life that truly disturbed me. Sure, “Cannibal song” is creepy, as were a few other tracks on “mind”, but “Dream song” is on a whole other level. Great (or maybe awful?) song to play in the car, as you drive down an empty, dark road all by yourself (and I would know, since I’ve already done it multiple times).

So, besides the groaner that is “Test”, and the dud that is “Breathe”, this is an engaging, creative, influential, and essential industrial metal album, and not just a great one within its sub-genre, but just a great metal album as well. What more do I need to write?

“The mind is a terrible thing to taste” gets 9 bites into Ray Liotta’s brain out of 10.

Information
Released: 1989
Label: Sire/Warner Brothers
Website: www.ministrymusic.org
Ministry
Al Jourgensen: lead vocals, guitars, programming
Paul Barker: bass, programming
William Rieflin: drums, programming
Mars Williams: saxophone
Chris Connelly: guest vocals
The Grand Wizard: shitty rapping
Whole bunch of people: background vocals

Tracklist
01. Thieves
02. Burning Inside
03. Never Believe
04. Cannibal Song
05. Breathe
06. So What
07. Test
08. Faith Collapsing
09. Dream Song

Reviews