Ministry, Meshuggah
Among the first to take the crushing-block/printing-press industrial sounds of art and noise bands, and fuse them into something resembling heavy rock and roll, Ministry and its leader, Alain Jourgensen, is currently among music’s most caustic and sarcastic critics of the current administration and its lack of ethics. Jourgensen – ever the outlaw shaman, mirrored sunglasses under a haystack of matted hair, funneling his fury into a microphone stand bedecked with skulls, roadkill, and other assorted – has seemingly never been angrier at anyone like he is at the former governor of his adopted home state of Texas. This fuel has re-inspired and rejuvenated Ministry to new levels of lyrical vitriol and musical ultra-aggression: 2006’s Rio Grande Blood and 2007’s The Last Sucker have served as album-length dissections of the Bush-Cheney administration’s diabolical misadventures and mistakes. But will this really be, as Jourgensen has promised, the “C U LaTour”?
Opener Meshuggah is not, contrary to your bubbe’s tales, a group of nice Jewish boys, but a fearsome crew of burly Vikings from Sweden who aspire to take their prog-jazz metal to new heights with every latest release. Yet, Meshuggah’s new Obzen breaks little new ground: while bringing the usual mathematical precision to head-banging volume, it’s still all sinew and little soul. (Fri.-Sat., House of Blues, 8430 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, 323-848-5100.)
For info, see Rock, Pop, Acoustic listings.
Published: 04/02/2008
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