Levitation Review: Ministry
Uncle Al Jourgensen, a skeletal spider remnant
By Richard Whittaker, 1:05PM, Sun. Apr. 29, 2018
Ever hear of the Ship of Theseus? It’s the thought experiment that asks if you have a boat, and you replace the oars and the planks and the sails, is it really the same boat? That’s Ministry in 2018.
Any band hits 36 years and there’ll be ample turnover, but Ministry is near unrecognizable. Not that every element of the former masters of industrial metal is gone. Good old Uncle Al Jourgensen, a skeletal spider remnant of his iconic wiry self, is still front and sometimes center, shredding what’s left of his voice over his cadre of competent, sometimes inspired journeymen.
Jourgensen admits he’s best under a Republican administration. Being angry gives him focus, and the Trump White House has given him plenty to be angry about. It’s also given him a new stage prop – a giant, inflatable, golden-haired Trump/chicken hybrid – to listlessly kick.
As such, pulling hard from quasi-maybe-return-to-mid-2000s-form Amerikkkant makes sense, and not just because it’s the newest album. Fearlessly political has always been the name of Ministry’s game, and scathing opener “Twilight Zone” proves Jourgensen still has some teeth and that the world still needs fearless anarchists.
Nevertheless, the 75-minute set at Emo’s on Saturday night proved so frontloaded with a post-Animositisomina blast-beat roar that it became clear how much, even after 15 years’ absence, Ministry misses the sinuous slither of vital collaborator and bassist Paul Barker, last seen in Austin a month ago gloriously resurrecting the lascivious, skeezy Revolting Cocks. By the time Jourgensen begrudgingly dipped into the classic, late-Eighties/early-Nineties releases, the retro charm had worn thin. Leaving that material – which needed more vocal chords than 2018 Jourgensen can muster – until the end was a mistake, as the bandleader botched words and missed beats.
Plus, dipping into 2013’s execrable From Beer to Eternity and ignoring 1988’s truly seminal The Land of Rape and Honey is just fucking dumb.
The only excuse for dragging “Victims of a Clown” out rather than “Stigmata” was to give stand-in vocalist/replacement minister Burton C. Bell a few moments onstage. Guess what? He was better, sharper, more aggressive than the slurring, lyric-mangling Jourgensen could possibly be.
Maybe it’s time Uncle Al hung it up, but if Ministry 3.0 can improve to a fresh start, Bell’s already on hand.
Ministry set-list, Emo’s 4.28.18
“Twilight Zone” “Victims of a Clown” “Punch in the Face” “Señor Peligro” “LiesLiesLies” “Rio Grande Blood” “We’re Tired of It” “Wargasm” “Antifa” “Just One Fix” “N.W.O.” “Thieves” “So What
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Levitation 2018, Ministry, Al Jourgensen, Paul Barker, Revolting Cocks, Burton C. Bell