Thursday, April 24, 2008

Review: Ministry and Co-Conspirators - Cover Up


Label: 13th Planet Records

Released: April 1, 2008

I'm not much of a Ministry fan. Sure, Land of Rape and Honey was a very good album, particularly for its time, but otherwise they've never grabbed me. Nonetheless, when I saw Al (or Alien as he's listed in the conspiracy-themed liner notes) Jourgensen and friends were releasing an album full of covers, I was intrigued. If irreverence ever served anything well, it would likely be covers of a bunch of rock staples and perhaps no one is as irreverent as Jourgensen.

Sadly, the end result sounds like someone covering Ministry covering these songs. It has all the tell-tale signs of industrial music (overly-distorted guitars, rapid-fire beats), but nothing that sounds like it was done by a founder of the sound rather than an imitator. To be fair though, the album isn't without its fun. "Mississippi Queen" gets a jump start (and keeps the cowbell). The already dirty "Roadhouse Blues" has that dirtiness amplified by the sludgy noise. "Lay Lady Lay" does a great job of walking the not very fuzzy line between Dylan and Ministry. "What a Wonderful World" should be exempt from the kind of mistreatment that I expected to hear on this album, but it's pulled off well enough that I'm not sure it gets disparaged, even when the speed gets turned on. Is there a softer side to Jourgensen? Probably not, but give him credit for making me ask. These few exceptions aside though, the album falls short of the expectations of even a non-fan.

I removed the Dylan rating for this one, because they're all covers.

Ratings
Satriani: 7/10
Zappa: 6/10
Dylan: ?/10
Aretha: 4/10
Overall: 5/10

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2 Comments:

Blogger Metal Mark said...

I definitely liked this one. Sometimes it's okay to put down the review checklist and set a side the dissection tools and just enjoy a CD. It wasn't meant to be taken very seriously and I enjoyed the majority of the songs.

9:33 AM  
Blogger bob_vinyl said...

"I enjoyed it" or "I didn't enjoy it" wouldn't make much of a review though. It would be meaningless to everyone. I know it wasn't meant to be taken seriously, but other than a few tracks, I didn't think it was all that fun. In order to make than tangible to others, I had to explain why.

9:45 AM  

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