{"id":14583,"date":"2013-09-06T00:00:53","date_gmt":"2013-09-06T00:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=14583"},"modified":"2013-10-09T13:12:47","modified_gmt":"2013-10-09T13:12:47","slug":"album-review-ministry-from-beer-to-eternity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-ministry-from-beer-to-eternity\/","title":{"rendered":"MINISTRY – From Beer To Eternity (2013) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

MINISTRY
From Beer To Eternity<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nAFM (2013)<\/span>
Rating: 9.5\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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After decades of pissing people off, Ministry called it a day back in 2007 with their album The Last Sucker<\/em> due to mainman Al Jourgensen\u2019s failing health. Fast forward through the awful Buck Satan country album (2011\u2019s Bikers Welcome Ladies Drink Free<\/em>) and we arrived at a handful of songs written with Jourgensen\u2019s partner in crime Mike Scaccia (Rigor Mortis). The result was the Ministry album the metal world had wanted for a decade, Relapse<\/em> (2012).<\/p>\n

A return to form in almost every sense, the band seemed poised to retake industrial metal for their own. Unfortunately, Mike Scaccia collapsed and died on stage while performing with Rigor Mortis in December 2012, and now Jourgensen is ending Ministry again with From Beer To Eternity<\/em>, the final batch of songs written with his best friend. It\u2019s a great, but sad story. The good news is that this is quite possibly Ministry\u2019s best ever album, easily rivaling Psalm 69<\/em> (1992).<\/p>\n

Much like Relapse<\/em>, From Beer To Eternity<\/em> is more metal and more electronic than most of Ministry\u2019s output in the new millennium. Gone are the driving punk rhythms and the thinner and thinner production of the band\u2019s pre-retirement string of albums and replacing them are the heavy synths that dominated their earlier albums and the thick wall of heavy, and often melodic, guitars that launched the band into the stratosphere with Psalm 69<\/em> and Filth Pig<\/em> (1996). Also, mostly absent are Jourgensen\u2019s political rants. There are a few here (\u2018Fairly Unbalanced\u2019 and arguably \u2018PermaWar\u2019) but for the most part, Ministry keep it less specific, tackling issues as opposed to people.<\/p>\n

Pretty much every song here is a highlight, a swirling vortex of sound that is harsh and cold capped off by the odd melodic vocal and the wailing of Jourgensen. \u2018Perfect Storm\u2019 embraces all of these elements, reminding us of Ministry\u2019s past as well as what future it might have had. The eight-minute epic \u2018Thanx But No Thanx\u2019 tackles the good and the bad the band have seen over the years while fully enveloping itself in pretty much every stage of their legendary career. The guitar work here is much more musical than the band has been in years and it\u2019s not afraid to embrace the almighty groove. <\/p>\n

The moments here that I enjoy the most are quite simply the ones that remind me of the band\u2019s pre-Psalm 69<\/em> career. The almost dark, synthetic, industrial edge of \u2018The Horror\u2019 is the best example, but the harsher \u2018Change Of Luck\u2019 is right there with it, bolstering itself with a big anthemic vocal piece towards the end of the song. The guitar work is insane on the latter, proving that these guys still had plenty to offer musically.<\/p>\n

Overall, I can\u2019t say enough good things about this album. The only even minor complaint I have is the attack on the TV news channel Fox News on \u2018Fairly Unbalanced\u2019. I hate Fox News but I\u2019m also sick of hearing about them. The fact is, this isn\u2019t just \u201canother Ministry album\u201d and it isn\u2019t just \u201cleftovers\u201d. It\u2019s a damn near perfect album that brings the band full circle. My heart is heavy that this is the last ride.<\/p>\n

Mark Fisher<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MINISTRYFrom Beer To Eternity AFM (2013)Rating: 9.5\/10 After decades of pissing people off, Ministry called it a day back in 2007 with their album The Last Sucker due to mainman Al Jourgensen\u2019s failing health. Fast forward through the awful Buck Satan country album (2011\u2019s Bikers Welcome Ladies Drink Free) and we arrived at a handful […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,771],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-ministry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14583"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14587,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14583\/revisions\/14587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}