Ministry - Rio Grande Blood

Althought politically centered works such as this will rapidly transform into something anachronic, it's own power will maintain it's quality and force way beyond the epoch they were made into. Case is "never mind the bollocks..." by Sex Pistols for example, a classic even today.
Ministry delivers a furious musical and lyrical diatribe against the system using a thrash metal, punk influenced phormula with some electronic and industrialized interludes and the final balance it's quite good.
The work cannot be qualified as for Ministry was, or did previously, but from what it is and ultimately sounds now.
When you hear this you inmediately feels influences from Slayer (the rapid, merciless riffing) and punk acts such as The Exploited and basically any thrash metal type band from the mid eighties.
The electronic elemments used, emphasize the feelings of hate and repulsion, rebellion and discomfort this work is filled with.
So forget about "Psalm 69"! this is not industrial rock! This is thrash metal from cradle to grave and it must be judged as such, and guess what...It's good.
Again, Ministry regenerates it's appearence and get rid of all the compromises with his own past giving you a discharge of pure thrash metal attack. Don´t expect more.

I'd like to offer a counterpoint to the very narrow review the previous poster gave. Jourgensen's work since Psalm 69 has been incredible. Filth Pig completely revamped the bands sound, and in quite a few people's opinions (mine included), stands as possibly their best LP. This release is no exception. The music is possibly the most raw and venemous material Al has composed. The political agenda behind the music is very spot-on. It seems to me that he has found a new youth and vitality in the post-Barker material. It's a horse of a different color, for sure, but it's not different from their transition from synth pop to industrial dance, or from that to industrial metal into dark psychadelic metal into (now) thrash. Ministry, like Skinny Puppy, is great because you never get the same album twice.

This release is WAY too political. I understand that he is trying to spread his view of what he thinks of the government, but it just got too in the way of what should of come first, his music. It just seems as he decided to take the easy road to make some money. I'm not trying to take sides here as far as political views go, but when you listen to a couple of songs, you already know what the rest of them are going to talk about. If this was an EP, then I probably would of given this a higher rating and a better review. But since it's an LP, he just picked a topic (Pres. Bush, obviously) and made a whole album out of it. It's boring and it makes him seem that he can't come up with anything good anymore. There is no doubt that this album will sell seeing as all the publicity that it's been getting since it is a government bashing record. But that doesn't mean that it's good. Psalm 69 was the last good record that he's put out and that was because he was all drugged out. Now that he's, from what I hear, supposedly sober, the quality of his music has dropped.