Ministry - Filth Pig

Label: Warner Bros Records
Catologue Number: 9362-45838-2
Format: CD
Date: 1996
Style: Industrial Metal / Alternative Rock
Rating: 7/10
Reviewer: Sidney James

Ministry after the release of Psalm 69 seemed destine for mega stardom on a level with their other industrial rock peers Nine Inch Nails. The crossover than Ministry had achieved had left in its wake a thousand wannabes armed with a sampler and rock hard guitar sound. However with the release of Filth Pig, Al Jourgensen and Paul Barker decided to move away the sound they had created with A Mind is a terrible thing to taste and Psalm 69 and move Ministry away from the copycats and into less commercial realms.

The first thing you notice about Filth Pig is that it all seems a lot slower and heavier than previous Ministry releases. Where as the bulk of Psalm 69 seemed to be about how fast and controlled Ministry could play, Filth Pig replaces this with a slow low and heavy grind. The over riding influence on the sound is that of Black Sabbath, a band that Al Jourgensen had paid tribute to with the 1000 Homo DJ’s cover of Supernaut. In fact most of Filth Pig could be seen as a cybernetic remake of the classic Black Sabbath sound, heavy groove bass and controlled riffing.

The opening track Reload is the closest we get to classic Ministry, the stop start nature of the track reminds me of tracks like Thieves and TV II. The rest of the album comes as a shock to those expecting more cyberthrash. The second track Filth Pig manages to fit a harmonic into the slow motion sound that dominates the album and probably creates the most memorable moment on the album. The problem for me is that the majority of the rest of the album sounds amazingly similar to itself and it’s very difficult to distinguish most of the tracks from each other.

It’s not that Filth Pig is a bad album, it’s just lacks enough variation in it’s structure and Sound. The Highlights are the already mentioned title track, the Fall a piano driven track (originally recorded for the WELT Side project), Lava which manages to add some prime Killing Joke into the Sabbath stew and Brick Windows a track which sounds closer to the Pailhead project (a collaboration between Ministry and Ian MacKaye of Fugazi) which is dominated by more punk like guitar lines. Again out of some kind of perverse nature Ministry leave us with another deranged cover this time it’s Bob Dylan’s Lay, Lady, Lay , which is mildly amusing but no where near the genius of previous Jourgensen cover versions of Oliver Newton John’s Let’s get Physical and Rod Stewart’s Do you think I’m Sexy (Both covered as the Revolting Cocks).

Filth Pig to me, was a move by Ministry to distance themselves both from the bands mimicking them and also away from the fame they had gained with Psalm 69. It is not a bad album and had been released by any other band it would probably be counted as a classic. However fans of Ministry are aware that the potential of the band is so much more. The only people really smiling about this release are Ministry themselves. Knowing that they have achieved their aim of disenfranchising a large amount of the fan base they picked up with Psalm 69. It seems that Messieurs Jourgensen and Barker are interested in fame, and want to keep their underground status. With the release of Filth Pig they achieved this aim.