Ministry ‘From Beer To Eternity’ Review: Ministry’s (supposed) swan song is often hit and miss, but the late Mike Scaccia’s guitar work still impresses.

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If there’s one thing we’ve learned over the years about Ministry frontman Al Jourgensen, it’s that he’s often prone to exaggeration. His new tell-all book surely benefits from colorful embellishments when discussing haunted houses and such.

And he’s also claimed Ministry were calling it quits many times over. The Last Sucker was supposedly their final album. And then it was Relapse.

Read my Relapse Review

But here they are with another “Final” album From Beer To Eternity.

But in this instance we can cut Uncle Al a break, because Beer is a posthumous tribute to guitarist Mike Scaccia, who died onstage in Ft Worth TX last December.

According to Al, it was Scaccia who pushed for a new album, and he’s seen it through in remembrance.

Opener Hail To His Majesty (Peasants)  takes a long time to get going, but once it does it rocks heavily.  Jourgensen bellows: I hate all you motherf***ers…you’re stupid! Is he making fun of the Royal Family, the 1% or going off on his fan base? It’s not clear, so it makes the track feel a bit aimless.

More successful is Permawar, a lumbering off-kilter beast reminiscent of their unfairly maligned Filth Pig album. It’s a full on diatribe against our endless cycle of war in the Middle East; we’re fighting never-ending wars for profit and fun…We’re tired of Permawar!

Quite the fitting song given our escalation with Syria, no?

Punch In The Face is old-school industrial metal Ministry. It also features a killer solo from Scaccia, full of whammy pedal squeals ala Tom Morello.

Click here to Read Albums Revisited: Ministry’s The Land of Rape And Honey

Perfect Storm laments our ecological demise amidst a Sabbath-y rumble; The rising ocean has great and fewer fish, we turned the world into a petri dish.

The highlight of the album is the hilarious Fox News bashing Fairly Unbalanced. Jourgensen’s lyrics are priceless:  The other day I watched the Fox News Network. I swear they’re all on crack! I need to get me an aluminum helmet, my brain is under attack!

The song is punctuated by endless on-air gaffes from the Fox Staff  (such as Dick Morris claiming There is no chance that Obama will be  re-elected.). It also features blistering machine gun riffing.

After this song Beer tends to go off the rails; The Horror features more right wing soundbites (such as Todd Akin’s legitimate rape comment), which is somewhat hypnotic but ultimately fails to keep one’s attention.

Similarly Side FX Include Mikey’s Middle Finger  is a maddening mess of anti-depressant ad samples, guitar blasts and Jourgenesen bellowing. if you dug TV Song off Psalm 69, you’ll like it, otherwise be ready to press the skip button.

Thanx But No Thanx is a real oddity. It’s a full-blown dub reggae track. But the endless rant of a man assuming the tone of an aging bigot is grating.

Lesson Unlearned featured female backing vocals, hearkening back to the band’s new wave phase (i.e. I Wanted To Tell Her).

It’s hard to know if any one the lyrics reference Scaccia’s passing. Most of the album was recorded beforehand, but Change of Luck seems fitting. Amidst hypnotic Middle-Eastern guitar figures,  Jourgensen rails on life being unfair: The gift that keeps on giving..there’s some of you that get to keep on living, the rest of us are stuck. 

Since Jourgenson was reluctant to return to the studio, this may account for From Beer To Eternity’s uneven tone. But hardcore fans will enjoy hearing Scaccia’s final, searing riffs. He’s well worth a tribute disc.

Own From Beer To Eternity On iTunes: 

Own It On Vinyl From Amazon:

[amazon_image id=”B00EB09TIY” link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]From Beer To Eternity (red vinyl edition)[/amazon_image]