Ministry ‘AmeriKKKant’ Review: Al Jourgensen wages musical war against Donald Trump on band’s most unusual album to date.
[rating=3]
Al Jourgensen’s creativity has always thrived during Republican presidencies. It’s his muse, fueling all the best albums from his industrial juggernaut Ministry.
The band’s 1992 magnum opus Psalm 69 pilloried George HW Bush’s singular term, and the band got a second wind when Bush’s son became commander-in-chief, resulting in a trilogy of album’s that mercilessly mocked “Dubya.”
This stands in stark relief to material released under Democratic leadership: things cooled off during the Clinton and Obama years, when the group released their weakest albums (I still love me some Filth Pig though). Jourgensen is at his most fun when he has a clear target.
And as you could imagine, he’s anything but pleased by current president Donald Trump. His surreal, chaotic and buffoonish early tenure as the leader of the free world has led Jourgensen to release AmeriKKKant (out March 9th on Nuclear Blast). And the result is one of the band’s most bizarre and unconventional releases to date, befitting our current perilous state.
Click here for my 2016 interview with Jourgensen, where he pulled no punches discussing Donald Trump
It all starts with I Know Words, a fever dream soundscape of warped Trump soundbites (Jourgensen employs samples masterfully throughout the album), accompanied by Middle Eastern strings, piano and turntable scratches (courtesy of ex NWA member Arabian Prince and DJ Swamp) before morphing into Twilight Zone, a lengthy, hypnotic track punctuated by harmonica and Jourgensen’s distressed vocals.
That track features the lyrics I remember waking up on November 9, 2016, and feeling a little bit nauseous / It felt like descending into a bottomless pit on a high-speed rail/ Careening head first into the unknown. There isn’t one progressive lover of heavy music that won’t identify with that verse, and his unease is palpable.
For fans nervous that the band is abandoning metal riffs for trance inducing electronica, fear not: there are several thrashy numbers peppered throughout.
The pummeling Wargasm (featuring Fear Factory vocalist Burton C Bell) confronts America’s addiction to warfare (featuring more perfectly placed news snippets) while the hardcore-ish track Antifa is an unapologetic endorsement of a group that consistently inspires controversy (I’ve got something to say to you/I’m backing it up with my fist).
It’s worth noting that while AmeriKKKant is clearly inspired by Trump, it’s more fixated on the various societal factors that got him elected than the man himself.
TV 5/4-Chan is a case in point, featuring a white noise freak out recalling their classic song TV II, while the riff-driven We’re Tired Of It is simply a plea for bipartisan sanity.
So is AmeriKKKant the return to form diehard Ministry fans have waited for?
It’s a bit too scattershot to be considered an instant classic that stands up to their best works, but it is engaging, showing Jourgensen isn’t afraid to step out of his comfort zone in order to express his political discomfort.
Political rage is his own personal fountain of youth, and Amerikkkant shows he’s still not going down without a fight, and neither should we.
Buy it on Amazon:
This one dispenses with the formulaic thrash that has typified the majority of the post-Barker records. It is at times reminiscent of the experimentation found on ‘Dark Side of the Spoon’ and sometimes grinds along like ‘Filth Pig’; I expect it will draw the same response those albums did.
“Antifa” flat out sucks; “TV5/4Chan” was a missed opportunity to actually do a song in that time signature, which would have been far more entertaining. All in all, its the best one of the recent era… which isn’t saying a whole lot.
Yep. I like the spaciest moments the best. Rio Grande Blood was IMHO the last great Ministry album, largely because of the lineup. Once Raven and Victor left, it lost some steam, and losing Scacchia was truly the end of an era.