Issue #14: Ministry – Psalm 69

Released:  July 14th, 1992

Recorded:  1991 – 1992

Genre:  Industrial Metal

Record Label:  Sire / Warner Bros.

Duration:  44:38

Producers:  Hypo Luxa, Hermes Pan (pseudonyms for Jourgensen and Barker)

Personnel

Track Listing

Singles

Why Psalm 69 is One of My Favorites

Ministry just may be one of the most interesting “bands” in music.  It’s as if Jourgensen and Barker can hear something in their heads that the rest of humanity can’t quite replicate, though they do their best to toil away anyway.  Their style has changed considerably from album to album, beginning with synthpop, moving through electro-industrial, and by 1992, they were dabbling in the industrial metal that would soon come to be associated with acts like Nine Inch Nails and Manson.  Psalm 69 is a dirty, uncompromising record that most people probably won’t like.  In many ways, I find its weirdness to be a part of its appeal, and I’m always a sucker for crunchy guitars and a drum machine.

To be honest, I’m not sure what the hell Psalm 69 is about.  The words are difficult to understand, and even on occasions where I’ve had them right in front of me, I can’t make any sense of them.  This isn’t unusual for Ministry though.  When I listen to Psalm 69, it’s all about the music.  Psalm 69 bridges their early, more electronic material with the darker, heavier stuff found on the polarizing Filth Pig.  Having heard both sides long before I got my hands on Psalm 69, it’s definitely the best of both worlds.

This record is full of samples, processors, drum machines, loops, and guitars drowned in distortion.  Plenty of heavy riffs appear on the album alongside a few moments of blistering drum transitions, leaning much more towards metal than rock.  It’s difficult to discuss the similarities while giving each song its proper dues, so I’d like to touch on each of them quickly.

“N.W.O.” kicks off the album with a hypnotic loop of guitar and drums.  The heavy riff rolls over an almost danceable beat, potentially earning the track a spot on a DJ’s turntable.  Samples give the track its only “vocals,” and “N.W.O.” isn’t so much a song as it is a force.

“Just One Fix” is another catchy (relatively speaking) cut, with a speed metal influenced riff and dense percussion to match.  Jourgensen’s “underwater” vocals add an alien quality to the song.  Like the previous track, I can’t get enough of the thick, buzzing guitars.

“TV II” is essentially a thrash song, or at least part of a thrash song.  For a few seconds at the beginning, this could easily be a Metallica or Slayer track from the mid to late 80’s.  Blazing guitar picking is interspersed with explosive blasts of music, followed by the instruments dropping completely and allowing Jourgensen to scream about “connect the goddamn dots” (among other things) in an abrasively modified voice.

“Hero” has something to do with G.I. Joes, but I don’t pretend to understand the connection.  Like “TV II,” the thrash influence is evident with rapid guitar playing, though I get a bit of a hardcore vibe as well.  Jourgensen takes a more guttural approach to his delivery here, augmented by mutated vocal samples allegedly from the G.I. Joe cartoon.  Halfway through, we get a bona fide guitar solo before falling back into the main rhythm.

“Jesus Built My Hotrod” is next, and definitely stands as one of the strongest tracks.  Gibby Haynes, best known as the frontman of The Butthole Surfers takes over vocal duties, replicating his twangy, rapid-fire delivery from the Surfers’ “Who Was in My Room Last Night?”  In some bizarre way, “Jesus Built My Hotrod” almost sounds like a hellish country song.  Something about the beat, the lead guitar, and Haynes’ delivery gives it a very country/western feel, albeit sped up and drowned in dense, buzzing backing guitars.  There’s a controlled hyperactivity happening here, perhaps best represented by Haynes’ ability to flawlessly yet quickly spit out all those “a ding ding dang dong ling a ling long” lines.  I don’t know how the hell he pulled it off, but just thinking about it makes me laugh.

“Scarecrow” is another high point of the album, fully embracing the layered and noisy sounds of industrial metal while sloughing off some of the speed and intensity of thrash.  If you’ve picked up Psalm 69 to get more of the kinds of sounds found on NIN’s The Downward Spiral or Manson’s Antichrist Superstar, “Scarecrow” is where it’s at.  It moves along at a plodding yet crushing pace, with the continuous droning of guitars providing a steady background hum, almost like static.  Jourgensen slowly lets go of lyrics as the song plays; his unnerving “singing” oozes over the instruments while a lonely guitar melody peers in from the darkness.  “Scarecrow’s” sludginess is a nice break from the relentless preceding tracks.

“Psalm 69” begins slow and ominous like its predecessor, replete with samples of church sermons and an atmosphere evocative of the apocalypse.  Pretty soon, the booming guitars kick in as does an almost chant-like delivery from Jourgensen.  Then, we’re back to the “holy music.”  Then it’s back to a repeated Slayer-esque riff, kicking the song back over into the metal camp.  I would assume that there’s some commentary about religion tucked away in “Psalm 69,” but damned if I can figure it out.

“Corrosion” is a fitting title for this penultimate track; it sounds like pure destruction incarnate.  It is one big deafening wall of sound that might as well be every sound from the album mashed up into one.  The barrage of “guitar noise” is absolutely unforgiving and punctuated with bursts of inhumanly fast drums.

“Grace” is the final track of Psalm 69, functioning as a melange of static and samples.  I’m not quite sure why “noise” tracks like this so often end up on industrial or industrial-related records, but that’s life.

It’s not easy describing what’s great about a record like Psalm 69.  And honestly, it can be a challenging listen the first, second, fourth, or even eight time around.  But perhaps some of us latch on to some small part of whatever vision it is that Ministry had in their heads at the time, and perhaps that’s the instant where some beacon amid the chaos stands out.  I don’t pretend to full “get” everything going on here, but I absolutely love how “crunchy” it is.

Written by The Cubist  

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Written by The Cubist

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I collect as much video gaming paraphernalia as I can get my hands on, especially when it comes to hardware. With over 40 systems including oldies like the ColecoVision and Intellivision, obscurities like the CD-i and 3DO, and the latest and greatest including the Wii U, PS4, Xbox One, 3DS, and PS Vita, I get easily overwhelmed. Most of the time you can find me firmly nestled sometime between 1985 and 1995 when it comes to my games of choice, but I’m also having a great time seeing what the 8th generation has to offer.

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