This Week: Ministry's return, summer songs from Detroit, and Malkmus hits his stride
Ministry
Animositisomina (Sanctuary Records)
Feels just like someone sank their teeth in my head / Then tried to suck away my everlasting soul
That line off "Shove," the seventh track on Ministry's new record, could be seen as illustrative of the band's place in modern rock.
Today, the distorto vocals and machine-metal grooves of their early records are firmly entrenched in the dialect of heavy music, and to an extent even the broader lexicon of rock as a whole.
The band itself, meanwhile, seemingly deflated once the magnificent roar of 1992's Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs faded away. Filth Pig ('96) and 1999's Dark Side of the Spoon were flaccid in both content and execution, as if Ministry's lesioned soul was indeed being literally sucked away by the hordes that followed in their wake.
Not so on the Animositisomina, which picks up where Psalm 69 left off with "Animosity," a headlong mosh-pit roiler that sounds like a part two of Psalm's "N.W.O." What ensues is a punishing onslaught of tracks, with titles like "Piss" and "Leper" and "Shove," blurted out with all the red-line fury of the band's best work.
Animositisomina captures singer Al Jourgensen at a churlish crescendo, growling his bitter invective with all the hissing menace of an angry rattlesnake. And at those moments when words just seem to get in the way he steps aside, letting the crushing power of the band's hyper-mechanized rhythms stand alone.
What was it that rescued Ministry's latest from the scrapyard of mediocrity? Given that Psalm was released during
the previous Bush administration, maybe current events inspired fresh outrage. Or maybe they finally got tired of watching excretious pretenders like Korn and
Rob Zombie cash in. Whatever the case, Animositisomina is a wonderfully hideous return to form.
—Mike Gibson
Saturday Looks Good To Me
All Your Summer Songs (Polyvinyl)
Maybe I'm just a sucker for great pop songs, but Saturday Looks Good To Me has been the perfect anodyne to what started out as a particularly bleak and mopey year.
Which might seem strange because there's plenty of mopiness on All Your Summer Songs. It's filled mostly with
broken-heart songs and unfulfilled love songs. But they all have great hooks
and lush production, and waste no time crawling into your head. You could think of this band as a Detroit Belle & Sebastian, with a garage band aesthetic and a love of Motown and Phil Spector.
The group is the work of Fred Thomas, veteran of His Name is Alive, and whatever friends he can get to join him. And he has a lot of friends—the liner notes list 17 musicians and 11 singers, including indie luminaries like Ida Pearle, Karla Schickele, Daniel Littleton, Tara Jane O'Neil, and Jessica Bailiff. Thomas gives us an orchestral pop sound, complete with horns, strings and woodwinds, without ever sounding saccharine.
Thomas longs for those days when love seemed innocent and the pop songs on the radio meant something. Throughout there's a yearning for connection, whether it be with the cute girl or boy you've got a crush on or the song stuck in your head.
On the standout track, "Meet Me By the Water," one of the female vocalists sings, "Meet me by the water underneath the big beehive/ Bring your record player and your Raincoats 45s/ And we can dance together as the river rushes by."
—Joe Tarr
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks
Pig Lib (Matador)
With legions of loyal fans left from his days at the helm of one of the 1990's most influential groups, Stephen Malkmus could be forgiven for rehashing the same music into the 2020s. But with his latest offering, Pig Lib, the Pavement founder plows through some unexplored musical territory.
On this release Malkmus enjoys the backing of the Jicks, holdovers from Malkmus's first solo release in 2001 but formally recognized for the first time.
The album has a similar mood to the 2001 project, although certain songs' long instrumental interludes vary the tone enormously. "Vanessa from Queens" and "(Do Not Feed The) Oysters" show Malkmus at his entertaining best, lighthearted jokes and pithy truisms set to inventive guitar rhythms.
Pavement fans will appreciate the same vaguely smart-ass lyrics and skewed poetry that defined the indie-rock pioneers. Malkmus's unmistakable voice is as mellow and bemused as ever, though absent for long stretches.
During the album's musical excursions, Pig Lib is unlike anything Malkmus has produced. "Mountain Bridge" and "1% of Us," centered around guitar solos rather than lyrical content, bear a closer resemblance to Neil Young's earlier music than any creations from Pavement. Although he certainly has the chops on guitar to pull it off, those tunes lack the resonance of his best work.
Although Pig Lib fails to captivate the way Slanted and Enchanted did in 1992, the album offers more than enough edginess to satisfy the Pavement loyalists.
And Malkmus deserves credit for risking his fan base. Ultimately, the shortcomings are forgivable.
—Patrick Corcoran
April 17, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 16
© 2003 Metro Pulse
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