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Buyer Rating: 100.0% positive (12 ratings)

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Skinny Puppy - B-Sides Collect - 15-Sep-08 03:34 PM
'B-Sides Collection', aka '12 Inch Anthology - Part II', is not to be missed by the true Puppy connaisseur. Here you find basically most of what was left out of the original '12 Inch Anthology', plus most of what was later released on singles.

Unfortunately, several tracks are missing: the two versions of 'Inquisition', both different from the album mix, the extended version of 'Censor', the SF Mix of 'Testure' (listed but not included in the '12 Inch Anthology'), the extended re-edit of 'Tormentor' and 'Worlock', and the two mammoth noise improvisations 'Walking On Ice" and 'Spahn Dirge'.

Anyway, there's enough material to satisfy the Puppy collector: excellent b-sides like 'Amputate', 'Brak Talk' and 'Bark', the awesome Marc Ramaer mix of 'Tin Omen' (EBM-like and without guitars, very different from the Jourgensen metal version), the doomy dub mixes of 'Natures Revenge' and 'Mirror Saw'.

Personally, I would have prefered a double CD with the missing tracks too, in order to finally complete one's single tracks collection, but, anyway, again, that's a release not to be missed.

Death In June - All Pigs Must Die - 04-Aug-08 06:44 AM
I clearly remember the day this album was released: I was living in Germany at the time, and I went to a shop in town where it was possible to listen to vinyls. "All Pigs Must Die" had just arrived, and I was dying to listen to it. No doubt I had that it was going to be DI6's umpteenth masterpiece in an already legendary discography.

I put the piggy pink vinyl (what a nice colour) on the turntable, activated it, and stood there with the headphones, ready to experience the magic. The first song, the title-track, sounded good, with Forseti's Andreas Ritter playing accordion, Campbell Finley's typical trumpet, and Doug's voice performing his anathema against the three piggies of WSD. Then it was "Tick Tock", introduced by Boyd Rice, more of less same formula, without significant variations. Third song, "Disappeared In Every Way", again the same. It was time for "The Enemy Within", a song many had already praised as a new immortal classic. Guess what, it sounded exactly the same as all the previous, and, honestly, rather boring. The lyrics were the worst part: "Piggy, piggy, pay me... The stolen riches are really mine... I have a fight with three piggies". I understand Douglas' frustration for the legal issue with WSD, but all this sounded truly embarassing in my ears.

The worst had yet to come: when I flipped the vinyl and started listening to side B, I discovered that, although there were other five song titles indicated, it had been filled with a big undistinguished soup of noise, samples and distortion. It was a great disappointment. Later, I learnt to appreciate some of the songs on side A, but this doesn't change the fact that "All Pigs Must Die" is DI6's less convincing album, unworthy of the poetry, intensity and beauty of the previous discography.

Fortunately, all legal issues with WSD are now over, and Douglas has just released "The Rule Of Thirds", which may not be a return to the best years, but undoubtedly to a more inspired songwriting.

Death In June - "Nada!" - 04-Aug-08 06:03 AM
"Nada!" seems to be still the favourite album of many Death In June and goth fans in general. It's surely one of their most accessible and melodic, quite far from the gloomy industrial atmospheres of "The World That Summer" or "The Wall Of Sacrifice".

The album can be divided in two parts, clearly showing the interests and taste of each Death In June member at the time: Douglas P. (with the aid of Christ 777 aka David Tibet sometimes) wrote the acoustic ballads, while Patrick Leagas created the darkwave/electro tunes. I have to say, listened today most of the "experimental" songs sound quite dated and primitive, especially "Foretold", "Carousel" and "C'Est Un Rêve", with Patrick's voice not at its best in these episodes. Surprisingly, two years later he would have re-recorded everything under his new identity of Sixth Comm with far superior results. Doug's ballads, on the contrary, stood the proof of time, and are to be regarded as some of DI6's most charming classics: "The Honour Of Silence", "Leper Lord", the poppy "She Said Destroy", "Behind The Rose". The final, depressing carillon of "Crush My Love" is a beautiful, delicate and underestimated omen of what would have later happened in DI6's world.

I personally regard "Nada!" as a very interesting and historical, but inevitably transitional album. The real Death In June masterpieces would have started to appear only the following year.

Ministry - Filth Pig - 06-Jun-08 03:29 PM
Am I the only one who actually likes "Filth Pig"? I remember when it was released back in 1996: any magazine or fanzine said it was a disappointment, a bad album, the beginning of the end of Ministry. Anyone was expecting something faster and more violent than "Psalm 69", but no one understood that the only possible answer was to slow down and explore dark, gloomy atmospheres. Honestly, how could you possibly go faster than "Psalm 69"?
Apart from the initial dissonant chaos of "Reload", an appropriate title for a track which sounds like a heating exercise, both "Filth Pig" and, especially "Lava", are original and intriguing swamps of doom/sludge sounds, slow hypnotical rhythms and strange tunes sounding like country music played by undead cowboys in the middle of Mexican ghost town.
"The Fall" is exciting, the album's best song and, imo, one of Ministry's best, apocalyptic, desperate and even melodic, with deformed piano chords swinging on a background of heavy machinery noise rhythms and Jourgensen's epic singing. Bob Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay" is turned into an interesting noise rock ride, possibly one of the band's most "commercial" exploits, while final "Brick Windows" is another very good piece of work.
The four central tracks, from "Crumbs" to "Game Show" are, indeed, weak and rather uninteresting, you can skip theme without regrets.
On the whole, "Filth Pig" is surely not a masterpiece, but it's still a very good album in Ministry's discography, featuring some great examples of their courage to change and experiment with their sound on each release.
Maybe now that they have disbanded someone will start rediscovering it.

Ministry - Dark Side Of The Spoon - 06-Jun-08 01:22 PM
Probably the least convincing Ministry album, although some interesting ideas and experiments were tried here, "Dark Side Of The Spoon" came at the end of a difficult period for Al Jourgensen's band. The slow, doomish atmospheres presented on "Filth Pig" had been criticized by journalists and audience, who were expecting something even faster and more violent than "Psalm 69", so, when you start listening to "Supermanic Soul", it seems that the inevitable choice was to start pump again on heavy guitars and breath-taking rhythms. While the aforementioned first track, "Whip And Chain" and the nice but not very exciting single "Bad Blood" try to regain the scepter of the fastest and most violent industrial metal band on Earth, the rest of the CD fortunately parts from this urge, to experiment new unusual solutions.
"Nursing Home", for example, is a very strange and noisy instrumental track, with a jazzy rhythm and what sounds like samples of dentist's drills, while the excellent "Kaif", best tune of the album, is a slow, sad song, with heavy drums, sludgy rhythm and Jourgensen's voice expressing some real grief. It's a sign that the band believed in "Filth Pig", and they wanted to continue with what they had started on that underestimated CD. "Vex & Siolence" is the brainchild of Paul Barker, and it sounds much like a Lead Into Gold song, equally slow and introspective.
Anyway, all this is definitely not enough to save a CD which sounds weak and not at all convincing. The problem is that we're talking about Ministry, a band that marked history, inventing so much. This is, in the end, a less than average album, recommended just for Ministry maniacs who want to dig every single thing they recorded and discover hidden dark gems amongst their worst production.
Personally, however, I prefer listening to this than to the redneck heavy metal of "Rio Grande Blood"...

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