January 2020 Feature Release - The Sphere Edition

The start of the New Year is upon us which of course means that we'll be nominating a brand new monthly feature release for each clan. This essentially means that we're asking you to rate, review & discuss our chosen features for no other reason than because we enjoy the process & banter. Ben & I will certainly be contributing & we look forward to hearing your thoughts too.    

This month's feature release for The Sphere is 1992's classic fifth album from Los Angeles industrial metallers Ministry entitled "Psalm 69." It was a huge breakthrough release for the band & I've picked it specifically for one of our most beloved members in Xephyr as I know he was disappointed with last month's Sphere feature but was keen to check out some industrial metal with a bit more life to it than the sludgier Godflesh offers. Well here it is sir! Enjoy!

I decided to start the new year by moving out of my comfort zone and starting January's feature releases with a clan beyond my chosen three and a style of metal I'm less familiar with, so I thought I'd send some love The Sphere's way and checked out Ministry's Psalm 69. I'm not a complete newbie when it comes to Ministry (although pretty close) - I bought their Houses of the Molé album not long after it's release in 2004, after hearing NO"W" somewhere (I was always up for a bit of George W bashing!) It was kind of OK, but I've not listened to it in ages. Psalm 69, however, is a much better album with  energetic and at times thrashy songs and that beefy drum sound battering away in the background like a jackhammer. It's also fairly apparent that Al Jourgensen is a guy with a sense of humour (and a sense of the absurd too, I'm guessing), I mean just listen to Jesus Built My Hotrod for fuck's sake - crazy! My personal favourite is Scarecrow which, to my grizzled old ears, sounds like a mash-up of Zep's When the Levee Breaks and The Smiths How Soon Is Now? There is a couple of misfires -  I didn't like TVII or the racket of Grace, but tracks like NWO, Just One Fix and Hero kind of raised the bar on Industrial Metal as far as my listening experience is concerned.

So, nice one Daniel, excellent choice. Just goes to show - you can teach an old dog new tricks!

Oh yeah, now this is what I'm talking about. This was legitimately my first time listening to Ministry ever and these guys are riff and chug masters. "N.W.O.", "Just One Fix", "Scare Crow", and even "Corrosion" have some of the heaviest riffs I've heard in quite some time. Some bands are just able to nail that guitar and drum tone that just makes the the riffs chug, and Ministry is definitely one of those. The whole album is dark and gritty but still has an insane amount of energy and momentum as well as some hilarious tongue-in-cheek political and religious commentary, which surprisingly doesn't take away from the album. 

While I think I could build up to appreciating something more grating and monotonous, this is an easy 4/5 for me even on the first listen. The amount of influence this album had must have been insane, because through "N.W.O.", "Just One Fix", and "Scare Crow" I was reminded of so many other heavy metal songs that came out much, much later than this did.