Music Disc Reviews

The Last Sucker 13th Planet/Megaforce Music •••• Sound •••½

Don't judge a band by its first album - at least when it comes to Ministry, whose synth-poppy 1983 debut, With Sympathy, sounded virtually nothing like the abrasive industrial music it would create until ... this year. Sadly, The Last Sucker is reportedly the final album from mainman Al Jourgensen's crazed sonic beast. And it's a speaker-peeling, ear-puncturing statement at that - which makes sense, considering it's also the end chapter in a trilogy that has been slinging the smelly stuff at the Bush administration.

In "The Dick Song," as fuel-injected guitars churn over a relentless rhythm, Jourgensen lunges into hoarse mockery: " 'My name is Cheney, I got no remorse . . .' / Run run run, Cheney's got a gun . . . / He used a shotgun to blow off a face / He's still not done." Then, on the title track, as abrupt thrash morphs into widescreen, wildly arranged metal, Jourgensen aims at a bigger fish: "Born and raised in the U.S.A. / I got a different type of DNA / I got a bloodline from Texas to Maine / We run the world like a parlor game." Even when he's lassoing the Doors in a charging cover of "Roadhouse Blues" - and roaring "Save our city!" with gusto - he still seems to be venting his anger at the top brass.

Ministry may have left the building, but you can bet that Al Jourgensen himself will be back - with twisted beats and overloaded amps, railing against the system.

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