A fitting finale?

And finally, after 26 years, 22 albums, countless aliases as Lard, Revolting Cocks, Pailhead, 1000 Homo Djs, PTP, Ministry bow out with “Cover Up”, their very own tribute album to the songs of their past. Built around the current, fluid, ever changing lineup and with an amassed army of guest vocalists, “Cover Up” is either the last gasp of a commercially bankrupt band squeezing life from a corpse with sound alike copy cat l versions - an obscure Industrial Metal Version of a record by the winners of a reality TV show, lacking in any vision or personality - or it’s a enjoyable romp through ancient classics by The Rolling Stones, T Rex, Golden Earring, Deep Purple, ZZ Top and so forth, all lovingly Ministry-ized as the band romp around playfully during sessions for their final studio record “The Last Sucker”. Each song retains its original form (no radical rewritings, new bridges, changes or medleys), which given that both the originals and the remakes inhabit the world of rock means that the record is not a substantial revelation.

The album is let down by the fact that 3 of the 11 cuts on here have previously seen life on Ministry releases, which further adds to the impression (somewhat unfairly) that this album is a half-assed idea. Nonetheless, the record is a fine addition to their body of work : if this is the last and final Ministry studio record, it ends appropriately : on an epic cover of “It’s A Wonderful World” that manages both poignant and crushingly heavy at the same time, and is drawn out, extended and extrapolated far beyond what one would expect possible as Ministry doggedly fight their studio release to the death to a death-defying 17 minutes. The rest of the material - a half-camp cover of “Under My Thumb”, and effective and fun “Black Betty” - shows that whilst Alien Jourgenson and his co-conspirators do no have the largest record collections in the world (nor do they appear to listen to B-sides or obscure album tracks), they have fine taste. Whilst “Cover Up” lacks the utter sucker punch kick-in-the-balls of the recent, furious anti-Republican rage of the last few Ministry releases, it provides one last fix for Ministry fans, and further proof that the creative fire did not yet dry out, that Ministry still rage, rage, rage, against near enough everything with a consistent and effective final blanket firebombing of their childhood memories. A fitting farewell.

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