Pioneers of the industrial scene, Ministry actually began life as an unsuccessful synth-pop band, before their sound evolved into the bowel-shaking noise that, for a time, made them one of the hottest tickets in rock.
'Greatest Fits' rounds up thirteen highlights from their career, understandably omitting their earlier work. In fact, the opening cut is a new track, 'What About Us?'. Recorded for the soundtrack of A.I., it shows the band have lost none of their gut-churning intensity as vocalist and mainman Al(ien) Jourgensen barks out the chorus.
'Stigmata' and the title track of 1988's 'The Land Of Rape And Honey' demonstrated that this was a band going places. The percussion may be distinctly 80s sounding - taking the insistent, nervy sound of Joy Division to its logical conclusion - but the addition of pummelling guitars and keyboards, not to mention samples, took the music into new realms of heaviness.
'Thieves' and a lengthy live version of 'So What' represent 1989's 'The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste' before a triumvirate of songs from the album that really broke Ministry out of the underground, 1992's 'Psalm 69'.
The brutal, George Bush-sampling 'N.W.O.', with Jourgensen now delivering the vocals one octave above a death metal rattle, still sounds thrilling and lyrically is pretty prescient, what with 'Dubya' now sitting on the throne once occupied by his father.
The twisted 'Just One Fix' concerns a subject matter that would later almost threaten Ministry's very existence set to a relentless aural assault that sounds like an army marching through the speakers. Meanwhile, Butthole Surfer Gibby Haynes lends his manic vocal contortions to the industrial rockabilly of 'Jesus Built My Hotrod'.
Two tracks apiece from 1995's 'Filth Pig' - including their completely unfaithful nightmarish version of Bob Dylan's 'Lay Lady Lay' which has Jourgensen spitting the vocals like a English punk - and 1999's 'Dark Side Of The Spoon', plus a cover of Black Sabbath's 'Supernaut', courtesy of Jourgensen's deranged 1,000 Homo DJ's side-project, round things off.
While drug abuse may have stunted the band's creative growth from the heights of 1992, there can be no doubt that Ministry had a pioneering influence on taking the integration of dance elements into the heaviest kind of rock. And not only that, but the beats and samples were tools used to enhance the music, not merely as a token gesture.
If you wanted to know where Marilyn Manson, Static-X et al gleaned some of their inspiration or you want a concise summary of the career of one of the most extreme bands to reach the 90s mainstream, this is the album.
