Ministry

Last Tangle in Paris

Planet UDR Records, 2014

There’s three discs here. Tres. Trois. One DVD documenting live and behind the scenes footage of the band on the 2012 DeFiBrilLaTouR, and two live audio retrospective CD’s from 2006 to 2012. Nothing about this collection is subtle, thankfully. It squonks, squeals and feels as though the music is being torn apart from the inside-out. Cathartic? Perhaps, but more closely veering dangerously toward nihilism.

“Ghouldiggers” is such an honest assessment of the music business, it’s unsettling. Tupac, Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain will all tell you, (figuratively), dieing is good for bid’ness. And Al Jourgensen is gumming up the works by lingering on in life.

The video and the CD’s are testimony to a brutal show. A Ministry live performance is designed to pummel the spectator visually. The video screen is filled with accompanying imagery. There are a lot of close ups guitarist Mike Scaccia’s fretboard work-outs on his Explorer.

Al Jourgensen claims this is officially the end of Ministry. Guitarist Mike Scaccia, collapsed onstage in December, 2012, and died shortly thereafter. Jourgensen has stated that without Scaccia, there is no Ministry. This release is a fine tribute to one of the most groundbreaking and influential bands of the last thirty years. They blurred the lines of what synthesizers could bring to hard rock. It’s a touching tribute to Mike Scaccia and a fitting conclusion to the legendary career of an iconic band.