You could argue that Ministry has always been at its best in adversity. The inauguration of Barack Obama appeared to usher in a new era of social growth, thus robbing Ministry mainman Al Jourgensen of much of his anger in the process. This, coupled with the tragic loss of Paul Raven and Mike Scaccia, appeared to spell the end for one of metal’s most politically conscious institutions. However, if the election of Obama robbed Jourgensen of much of his muse, the shock announcement that greeted Americans on the morning of November 9th, 2016 looked set to restore it. Faced with a nepotistic President who governs by Twitter and whose ascendency has done much to legitimise sexually aggressive, amoral and even racist behaviour (much of which has been met by a deafening silence from the once-subversive music world), Jourgensen realised that Ministry were not so much relevant to the modern world as essential, and the result is ‘AmeriKKKant’, a searing, nine-track condemnation of the devolution society has undergone in the last two years.
Firmly asserting its point from the off, Al eases us into the album with ‘I know words’, a track which pitches heavily distended snippets of well-known Trumpisms against skittering industrial elements and haunting neo-classical strings. Like a cross between the music Chris Morris created for Brass Eye and Clint Mansell, it’s not necessarily the album opener that fans will expect, but it sets the scene perfectly for the brutally frank album that is to follow and, as ‘Twilight Zone’ emerges from Trump’s tortured tones, it’s clear that Ministry have put together their angriest album since ‘the last sucker’. Utterly remorseless, Michael Rozon’s precision-programmed drums provide a foundation-crumbling backdrop over which Sin Quirin and Al lay down their brutally distorted riffs. With Trump samples spinning through the mix, Uncle Al’s inhuman vocals and Hillbilly Harmonica adding a western vibe, ‘Twilight Zone’ is a politically-charged nightmare that serves to provoke thought at least as much as it looks set to pack the dancefloor, a line that few artists manage to walk with such consummate skill. ‘Victims of a clown’ emerges, aptly enough, from the swirling sounds of a fairground in hell, before developing a potent groove that harks back to Ministry’s golden period between ‘the land of rape and honey’ and ‘psalm 69’. With Ray Mayorga lending a hand on drums and some blistering slide guitar from Al, it’s good to know that at least one positive thing has emerged from Trump’s America. A brief, unnerving segue, in the form of ‘TV 5-4 Chan’ leads the listener into the Burton C. Bell-fronted ‘we’re tired of it’, as potent a blast of industrial-tinged punk metal as Ministry has ever unleashed, rendered all the more relevant in the wake of the tragic gun-related incidents that have swept America in recent months. As an album of cataclysmically heavy anthems, ‘Amerikkkant’ serves its purpose admirably, but it is arguably more effective in the way it holds a mirror up to contemporary society, and it feels all the more shocking considering how lonely a voice Ministry have now become in the face of such sweeping social change.
After the stripped down horrors of ‘we’re tired of it’, the Fear Factory-esque ‘Wargasm’ seems almost sedate in comparison, despite the molten slabs of guitar that blaze and spit amidst the tribal percussion and eerie samples. In contrast, the art-industrial horror of ‘Antifa’ is delivered with militant might, the beat recalling the heavy tread of a thousand pairs of marching feet. In some ways it’s surprising to see Jourgensen’s support for the extreme left given his historical distaste for coordinated action groups, but in a recent interview he suggested his support was more in favour of Antifa’s exasperated attitude, wherein ordinary people have been galvanized into responding to an increasingly unjust society, and the track certainly captures the ever-growing realisation that rage need not always be impotent. It sets the scene neatly for the album’s darkest, most industrial moment in the form of ‘Game over’. With its jittering synths and heavily compressed guitars, ‘game over’ recalls the clanking horror of the factory in which the original terminator met its fate, all gleaming pistons and the looming threat of unstoppable danger and Ministry have rarely sounded heavier. The album concludes with the eight-minute epic, ‘Amerikkka’, a mid-paced trawl through the mind-set of America’s disenfranchised right wing that will leave you bruised, battered and increasingly enraged at the cataclysmically unaware march that civilisation seems to be taking towards the very isolationism and nationalism that was to have such catastrophic consequences in the 1930s.
Popular culture has long had a place in questioning the nature of the system, but in recent years, following the advent of ‘fake news’ and the potential for instant critical response online, bands and artists seem increasingly less willing to use their platform to speak out on social issues. Indeed, with the exception (in the mainstream at any rate) of Machine Head, the metal world has seemed content to let hip hop take its place as the voice of the disenfranchised (one wonders how many metal fans watched Eminem’s freeform take down of Trump and wondered what the hell had happened to their own artists), and it is more vital than ever that acts such as Ministry challenge the increasing ignorance-by-choice of the electorate. When Bill Hicks railed against a society that preferred to sleep with their eyes open than question authority, he was only concerned about the anaesthetic effects of TV and Radio but, with the advent of the internet and despite all the information now freely available, more people than ever seem content to bury their heads in the sand. ‘AmeriKKkant’ serves as a wake-up call, both to the masses and to the bands that have, until now, remained staunchly silent in the face of ever-diminishing freedoms. Let’s hope it’s heeded. 9
