I managed the hat trick today – a
term I’m going to start using when I get to the gym three times in one week. This is the goal every week, but you’d be
amazed just how intrusive fun can be on a workout schedule.
Anyway, today I hit another big
milestone – my 400th album review!
Still miles to go before I sleep, but I like my journeys dark and deep.
Disc 400 is…Psalm 69: The Way To Succeed And
the Way To Suck Eggs
Artist: Ministry
Year of Release: 1992
What’s Up With The Cover?: A shadowy angelic figure surrounded by a variety of
objects that would be at home in a Twilight Zone intro – clocks, eyeballs,
razorblades. You know, creepy stuff.
How I Came To Know It: Two nightclubs –
Scandals in Victoria, and Love Affair in Vancouver, played the hell out of
these songs in 1992/93. I was
there. My roommate Greg owned the album in
the day, and after we stopped living together I looked for it off and on for
years. I finally found a used copy at a
local record store about a year ago.
Coincidentally, one
of my friends today, Catherine, worked the coat check at Scandals back when I
was going there to drink and mosh my face off.
We didn’t know each other then, although she probably checked my coat
more than a few times, but she also has fond memories of this record. So this review goes out to all the former
coat check girls out there, but mostly to Cat, the coolest of them all.
How It Stacks Up: I only have this one Ministry album. I’ve heard another one – the deliciously
titled “The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste” – but I only own “Psalm 69.”
Rating: 4 stars
Sometimes you
need music that makes you feel like you’re part of society, and sometimes you
need music that makes you feel alienated from society. This record is for those times when you need
music that does both at the same time.
In the early
nineties, my friends and I frequently needed the combination, and fortunately
at that time there was lots of music that fit the bill. The best nightclub for this combination back
then was Love Affair in Vancouver, but I only got over there infrequently. A smaller, but equally enjoyable time could
be had in Victoria at Scandals.
Scandals was
located on Yates street, and today it has become Lyle’s Place records – if you
go there take a good look at the stylish big wooden counter where the cash
registers are – that used to be the bar.
It is a fine local music store where you can buy old CDs, especially classic
rock and heavy music. Fittingly, it is
the place I found my copy of “Psalm 69” after all those years.
As a CD, “Psalm
69” occupied a tiny part of a shelf of music, but in 1992, “Psalm 69” filled
that space with the best industrial rock the Ministry has ever made. We’d go down there on the weekends, of
course, but the great day was Alternative Tuesday, when the music was even
heavier. Sunday was also pretty good –
being “Three for One” night.
I have a minor
beef with part of industrial rock’s legacy, which (to my mind) partly led to
offshoots of electronica dance music, and eventually that weird, goes-nowhere
sound of bands like Massive Attack.
Yeah, I just called
out Massive Attack, the most inappropriately named band I’ve ever heard. If you really want a massive attack, then get
the Ministry’s “Psalm 69.” This record
is an assault of sound; heavy, driving music that is oppressive and
powerful. When I heard it I had the
experience I used to get as a teenager discovering metal. It was so low down and angry, and yet the
music filled me with visceral, strangely positive energy.
The opening
track, “N.W.O.” is instantly
recognizable with its drumbeat, its sampled siren and some guy going “heh – heh
– heh” over and over again. Then the
guitar riff comes in, by which time the dance floor at Scandals was full. The bouncers would close in and watch closely
for the mosh pit, ready to break it up when it got out of hand, but it would
always reform at least twice during “N.W.O.”
– the song couldn’t be denied.
Other huge tracks
on this album included “Just One Fix”
and “Jesus Built My Hotrod” – great for
essentially the same reasons. The songs
had a layer of different sounds, repetitive and yet organic, which gave you all
kinds of leeway on the dance floor to work your hands and feet into furious
action. Or, if you weren’t feeling
terribly creative that night, to just bump into other people, who would in turn
bump into you.
This album is not
about lyrics, although the spoken word intro to “Jesus Built My Hotrod” is pretty hilarious:
“Soon I discovered that this rock thing was
true. Jerry Lee Lewis was the
devil. Jesus was an architect previous
to his career as a profit. All of a
sudden I found myself in love with the world so there was only one thing that I
could do. It was ding-a-ding dang my
dang-a-long ling long.”
Not much to
add. We’ve all felt from time to time
the need to ding-a-ding dang our dan-a-long ling longs, I suppose.
“Scare Crow” and the title track also deserve
honourable mention, if only for their awesome heaviness. Sadly, the record peters out a little bit
with “Corrosion” and “Grace,” two songs that reminded me how Love
and Rockets songs sound on a bad day.
These were not enough to dent the four star rating of the record though.
Years later, listening
to it walking to work in a spring morning didn’t cast this album in its best
light, but it somehow still maintained its energy. It just made me miss the mosh pit.
Best tracks: N.W.O., Just One
Fix, Jesus Built My Hotrod.
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