Album Review: Ministry - "Moral Hygiene"

 

Reports of Ministry's demise have often been exaggerated down the years and sure enough, 2021 sees Al Jourgensen rising from the murky depths again after a three-year break following 2018's Trump-skewering Amerikkkant. And it's pretty clear from the opening newsreader-sampling onslaught of Threat Level (with its screamed line of "There's no-one to blame but ourselves!") that he's certainly in no mood for pulling punches.

Moral Hygiene certainly doesn't let up throughout with Al howling his diatribes on the likes of the furious anti-Trump Disinformation and the ominous Broken System. Yet it's far from a one trick pony with a few curveballs which you really don't see coming like sinister Believe Me which features acoustic guitars over the industrial drumbeat. Sabotage Is Sex even sees him reuniting with his old Lard bandmate Jello Biafra with the pulverising riff and Jello's typically unhinged vocals combining well to create something pretty damn awesome. Similarly, Ministry's reworking of the Stooges' Search And Destroy into a lumbering flame-spewing industrial juggernaut really shouldn't work but it undeniably does.

By the time the deranged preacher vocals and frenetic guitars of Death Count and TV Song round this off, it's fair to say that Ministry have more than reiterated their status as a ferociously relevant band. Oh sure, there's been a lot of angry political albums in the last couple of years and with good reason but Moral Hygiene definitely sees Ministry returning, if not quite to the level of their quality high point Psalm 69 then at least to their mid noughties career rebirth on Houses of the Mole. A commendably strong effort from Al and his latest bunch of ne'er-do-wells and one that you should definitely track down.

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NITE SONGS RATING: 🌖🌖🌖🌖🌖🌖🌖🌖🌑🌑 (8/10)

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