The Last Dubber [Digipak]

Performer: Ministry
Engineer: John Bilberry
Producer: Dave Donnelly; Al Jourgensen
Distributor: RED Distribution

Notes: Personnel: Al Jourgensen (vocals, guitar, harmonica, programming, drum programming); Thomas M. Victor, Paul Raven (guitar, background vocals); Sin Quirin (guitar); John Bechdel (keyboards); Clayton Worbeck (programming); John Bilberry (drum programming); Angie Jay, Kevin Spence, Erin Braswell, Josh Bradford (background vocals). Audio Remixer: Clayton Worbeck. By the time The Last Dubber arrived, loyal Ministry fans had already experienced two years' worth of fringe releases, all coming after the "band" "retired" in 2007. This remix effort is the least desirable of all the live albums and other ephemera Al Jourgensen has released since laying his Ministry project to rest, but it's not a complete washout and serves a purpose for fanatics who thought The Last Sucker was just too tight. Here, that album gets chopped and stretched into a sprawling landscape of scrapes and thuds, none of it hitting as hard as the source material. A good example is how the opening "Clocks Strike Thirteen" mix of "Watch Yourself" doesn't catch fire until its last 41 seconds, although the crawl to get there is textured, interesting, and as druggy as the spliff-toking George W. on the cover implies. Just like on Ministry's Rio Grande Dub, Clayton Worbeck handles most of the remixing with John Bechdel and DJ Hardware getting one track each. With his hands mostly off the project, Jourgensen gets to stick by his retirement promise. Fans get that lone Ministry album which doesn't demand much attention and can actually slink into the background. ~ David Jeffries

Though Chicago's Ministry is known as the archetypal industrial rock band, they actually started out as a dour synth-funk outfit before founder Alain Jourgensen really ratcheted up the noise and the gloom on 1988's THE LAND OF RAPE & HONEY. In so doing, Ministry became the template for scores of industrial bands to come, combining roaring, metallic guitars, distorted, demonic vocals, and relentlessly pounding electronics. By the '90s, they were alt-rock icons, getting heavy play on MTV and appearing at the Lollapalooza festival. Even after Jourgensen's musical partner Bill Rieflin left in 1994, Ministry continued making dark, disturbing music for their legions of admirers.

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