holy_diver's Full Review: The Land of Rape and Honey by Ministry
A few months ago, I set out on a quest to track down this surprisingly rare release from Ministry. You see, being a huge fan of both metal and industrial music, and hearing so many claims that this was THE definitive industrial-metal release (the start of an ad-havoc relationship the two genres would continue to share until modern day), I concluded this was bound to be a CD worth the effort of tracking down. Aggressive beats and ample samplings mixed with angry shredding and double-bass? How could it not be everything I loved in one convenient package?
Well, unfortunately, great ideas can be executed poorly. And in this case, Ministry's front man, Al Jurgenson, took a great, highly original idea, and made it into a musical confection that was boring and stale even when it was fresh out of the oven. I understand the “classic” status stapled to The Land of Rape and Honey, if for no other reason than it was very unique listening material for 1988. But uniqueness doesn’t mean an artist can get away with producing something this devoid of skill or thought.
Several tracks, such as Deity and Destruction, feature nothing more than three-to-five minutes of the simplest drum beats imaginable (bass, snare, base, snare, base, snare), to the constant monotony of simple guitars and stale distortion. Save for some neat sound manipulations on Destruction, the two fail to make a mark. Not because of their excess of synthetic sounds - it’s that most of these songs literally never change. . . not once. They start the same exact way they end, with absolutely no deviation throughout. Talk about cut and paste aesthetics.
So industrial music relies heavily on electronics. I’ve got no problem with that - some electronic music actually does take skill and creativity, contrary to popular opinion. Other early industrial acts such as Front Line Assembly (their earlier material) and Skinny Puppy have done amazing things with nothing more than clusters of jarring synthesizers. But in those cases, these artists would have deviations in their sound and diversity in their rhythms. They would challenge the listener with their lack of convention, creating sounds and moods that were often startling and hideous, yet somehow compelling and beautiful. Not Ministry. The closest they come to such moods is Golden Dawn, a rather desolate but effective excursion into depressive post-modern ambiance. It might drag on a little longer than it’s own worth (five minutes or so), but it at least pulls out some emotion from the listener.
But then, of course, we are pulled back into mindless repetition. Note the emphasis on mindless. All electronic music is repetitious - such repetitiousness is almost the point of electronic music, but electronic music (industrial or otherwise) is also defined by layers. Layers that build upon layers that build upon layers that build upon layers, until you have one giant orchestra of rhythm and sound. Not with The Land of Rape and Honey. Al Jurgenson took such a minimalist approach to this purposeless angst that seldom are there more than three or four layers going on at once. The title track’s chopped up flow sounds interesting at first, but four minutes later, when the same inaudible vocals drone over the same exact electronic chop, patience dies quickly. The song never builds up to anything, there is never a climax, and there is never any surprises. This holds true for most of the tracks on this album.
I Pefer holds slight promise with it’s punk-like intensity. But again, that intensity becomes annoyance once the listener realizes that a basic drum pattern and one simple synth hook make up the entire song. Aside from a couple of stale drum fills, the entire song’s course is obvious within the first ten seconds. Flashback, as the name unintentionally suggests, harks back to the above. While it’s galloping percussion is refreshing from an album that uses maybe three or four different drum beats in it’s entirety, the god-awful lyrics and relentless pounding of it’s fist-pumping flow gets very old, very quickly.
However, we cannot forget Stigmata, The Land of Rape and Honey’s opener and crowning jewel. Quite frankly, it’s the closest thing to an impression this album leaves on me. For once, loops ad nauseam don’t spoil the heavy metal influence of this album. We hear live guitars (which, in fairness, do appear occasionally elsewhere on the CD), tactful double-bass and (what’s this!?) changes in tempo and sound! An erratic, static-drenched solo even makes it’s way into the song, capped off with a simple but brutal drum fill.
Ahh, how gratifying it is when the alienating abrasions of industrial music mate wonderfully with the weight and intensity of metal. If only it happened more than once on this album. . .
It’s tragic where this CD ended up in my mind. As an individual and avid music listener, a rarely mince my hopes with high expectations - I’ve been let down enough times in the past to avoid making such a mistake. With The Land of Rape and Honey, however, I suppose I have only myself to blame for my own disappointments. Simply put, I just expected much more from this. Industrial music and metal have many great elements that make them unique, but Ministry opted to splice the worst aspects of the two to make this seemingly endless loop of anxious droning.
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