Ministry-Cover Up
Some time in the 1990s, Ministry’s Al Jourgensen promised (or threatened) a country music cover album. We even got a bit of a preview at one of Neil Young’s Bridge School Benefit concerts, when the band did a rather straightforward version of The Grateful Dead’s “Friend Of The Devil.“ Sadly, this rather intriguing record-to-be never surfaced. But now, at the twilight of his career, Jourgensen has recorded a cover album. Unfortunately, there is no country music in sight.
Recorded under the moniker “Ministry And Co-Conspirators” (presumably to stave off a small measure of embarrassment), Cover Up is, hands down, one of the worst covers albums of all time. Worse than those bargain bin “tribute” albums any successful band must suffer through. Worse than the oeuvre of William Shatner. Even worse than Duran Duran’s Thank You.
It takes the sheer awfulness of a project like this to point out how good we had it in the years between 1992’s brilliant Psalm 69 and 2007’s miserable The Last Sucker. Could it be that 2006’s Rio Grande Blood wasn’t an album’s worth of George W. Bush rants that were done better on earlier records? Perhaps 1999’s The Dark Side Of The Spoon wasn’t a misfire. Maybe even 1996’s Filth Pig wasn’t so bad. Cover Up lifts that album’s cover of Bob Dylan’s “Lay Lady Lay” in its entirety and is one of the two palatable tracks on the album (the other is also previously released, the Black Sabbath standout and live staple, “Supernaut”).
There’s just nothing too terribly exciting about the idea of present-day Ministry, complete with tinny percussion, electronic drums, and no bottom end (where in the world did you go, Paul Barker?), limply covering classic rock tunes. The Rolling Stones (“Under My Thumb”), Golden Earring (“Radar Love”), and Mountain (“Mississippi Queen”) are all present here, in miserable forms. Even worse, Jourgensen seems to have lost his voice in the last few years. The tracks he sings on lack power, and the guest vocalists (Fear Factory’s Burton C. Bell, Amen’s Casey Chaos) add nothing recording a chainsaw ripping into a oak tree wouldn’t have.
Cover Up is, sadly, supposed to be Ministry’s last album. It shouldn’t be, though. No band with this much of a legacy should go out like this. Cover Up is terrible, plain and simple.
Grade: F
