Ohh dear lord Ministry is back wait that sounded kind of blasphemous, maybe that s just me, any way encase you don t know, Ministry is a Industrial Rock/Metal band, i say Industrial because they pretty much created the genre (even though they didn t run with it), well before I start ranting about Rio Grande Blood, I ll just add that although I m somewhat a fan , i was never engaged by Ministry, the music is overly simplistic for my personal taste, it s weird since i tend to think of them as a great band
So let s get into it with Rio Grande Blood , after some silly George Bush Jr speech, we get into it, ohhh how some things change and how other things stay the same, i think the drum machine and guitar sounds exactly the same as it was 10 years ago, pristine hehehe, filled with samples, and some shouting vocals from Al, this is some old school Ministry, with some twists and turns and a pretty interesting guitar solo, not bad at all, then comes Señor Peligro and again a bit of the same, it actually builds up really well to a hardcorish trashy metal, that finishes interestingly again with a funky guitar solo, good one, Gangreen starts up with some marine inspired drill until it goes on Ministry mode, damn even the double bass seems old school, don t know if it s on purpose but it actually sounds great, but the song although funky it s basically a continuous 6 min loop, then comes up Fear (Is Big Business) and its a slow burn industrial track well until it goes into a thrash overdrive.
Lies Lies Lies is another hardcorish track with a lot of sound samples, a bit predictable and with a over-abuse of the obvious chorus, well The Great Satan is next and it s an ok track, Ministry styled blasting and guitar work, Yellow Cake is a distorted sampled track, if the use of distorted sound wasn t so overused, it would have been better, Palestina is a bit more of the same, not bad, just the same thing, then Ass Clown starts up slow to a more eclectic track with a nice groove to it and another great guitar solo, seems the good tracks are the ones with a solo just coincidence i guess, Khyber Pass wraps things up and quite nicely i might say with a large build up with a female vocal under a toned down beat to a Ministry groove, then mixing the two things together (predictable are we), so that s about it.
Oh I might be getting mellow or something, but it s actually not as bad as i was thinking, sure it tends to drag and the fact that it feels like looped/sampled/drum-machine music doesn t help, ohh and all the Anti-Bush Anti-War stuff is fine and dandy but all the way trough the album the same old theme and the same sounding music tends to drag (deja-vu anyone?