Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 05/02/2006
Outraged, out of control, and a little bit out of ideas,
Ministry unleashes their second attack on
President George W. Bush with
Rio Grande Blood, number two in
Al Jourgensen's promised
Bush-hating trilogy, which when finished will bring his
Ministry project to a close. The manipulated
Bush samples and hate-filled revolution lyrics utilized on 2004's great
Houses of the Molé are back, and if there's an easy way to differentiate that album from what is essentially
Molé, Pt. 2, it's the contribution
Prong guitarist
Tommy Victor makes to this edition of
Ministry, giving
Rio Grande Blood a tauter crunch, a sharper thrash.
Victor's influence extends past the tracks he appears on, as evidenced by the opening title track, which finds
Jourgensen creating a
Prong-ish juggernaut on his lonesome. While lumbering numbers like
"Fear (Is Big Business)" and
"Yellow Cake" will do little to attract new fans -- and the reappearance of the
Rantology compilation's
"The Great Satan" feels like a cheat -- there's plenty of that smart, topical bile that's uniquely
Jourgensen to steady the album. Vicious
thrash-
punk of the highest order,
"Lieslieslies" isn't afraid to question the "truth" about 9/11 and the way
"Gangreen" parodies the Marines' cry of "Ooh-rah!" makes it a charming moment for pipe-bomb revolutionaries. If they happened to skip the last full-length,
Ministry fanatics would do well to start here and then work their way up to the superior
Houses of the Molé. Save a couple brilliant tracks, this is just the usual "satisfying follow-up."
~David Jeffries, All Music Guide
;)
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