Album Review: MINISTRY - Amerikkkant

01. I Know Words

02. Twilight Zone

03. Victims of a Clown

04. TV5/4Chan

05. We're Tired of It

06. Wargasm

07. Antifa

08. Game Over

09. AmeriKKKa

I remember getting into Ministry when I was a teenager, and the whole world and his dog had bought the 1992 classic Psalm 69: The Way To Succeed And The Way To Suck Eggs, which featured classics such as Just One Fix, N.W.O, and Jesus Built My Hotrod. The latter would go on to fill rock club dancefloors throughout the 90's! That album was a gateway to Industrial Metal for an entire generation and was certainly one of the most important and influential albums of that era.

I have always kept tabs on Ministry, but I still don't feel that they ever made a record that was of the same calibre of the aforementioned Psalm 69. Every now and then, they'd strike gold, but for the most part, I found them quite dull.

Main-man Al Jourgensen had previously said that there would be no more Ministry albums due to the death of guitarist Mike Scaccia in 2012 but changed his mind. It's very obvious that the political climate of America has fuelled his rage and has led to the decision to make another album. I thought I'd give AmeriKKKant a go, for old times' sake.

Opening track, I Know Words is just a series of samples of Donald Trump's voice with some synth under it. It's drawn out and isn't particularly interesting to listen to. I can't stand Donald Trump either, but this intro isn't something I'd want to listen to twice. It leads into the mid-paced, yet menacing Twilight Zone, which is again dominated by samples of Donald Trump talking shit over a repeated riff, and Al's vocals don't kick in until nearly two minutes into the song. It does have some nice harmonica in it, and overall reminds me a little of Killing Joke, but without the eloquence or ideas.

Things improve a little with Victims of a Clown, which has some fine guitar licks and plenty of vitriol in the vocal department. However, it's not until We're Tired Of It that I start to get into the record, as this track picks up the pace with a Thrash influence creeping in, taking the sound into more of a 'Prong' territory. This is probably my favourite track on here, and both Wargasm (sadly not an L7 cover) and Antifa come fairly close.

I really wanted to like Amerikkkant, but it really didn't do much for me. There's plenty of anger and noise, and a mountain of samples, however it's short on actual songs. Ministry is such an influential and established act that I'm sure this record will sell well. However, if this was released by a new band, I honestly don't think they'd get a record deal off the back of it. As Donald would say... "Sad".