Ministry – Houses of the Mole
Label: Sanctuary

Zane Ewton's review - he gave it a rating of 

Forget about the philosophical stances and the political rants, because the strength of Ministry’s new album, Houses of the Mole, is in the music.  Loud guitars and pounding drums are supported by electronic samples to create powerful and relentless songs.  Repetitious but never dull, Houses is a throwback to furious riffs and solos.

Mike Scaccia replaces longtime guitarist Paul Barker and the band doesn’t seem to miss a beat.  Houses begins with “No W”, stripped down thrash with complimenting samples from what is probably the CNN archive.  Ministry plays the straightforward approach through each track, including the rollicking “Warp City”, until the latter part of the album that becomes more experimental.

Longest track on the album, “Worm”, creates waves of noise that provide a break from the frontal assault undertaken through the first 8 songs.  “Secret” track 23 begins with a sample of “The Star-Spangled Banner”, followed by crushing guitars, George W. Bush samples, and an awesome solo.  

Houses of the Mole is overboard on the political art at times, and leans heavily on the current trend of bashing Bush without saying anything new.  There is a heavy time-stamp on this album, which is unfortunate because at the core is simply some good rock and roll.

Adrian Alfonso's Review - He gave it a Rating of 

I hesitated when I received the new Ministry album, Houses of the Mole. Well for starters they haven't kicked ass ever since Psalm 69. The band has gotten rid of Paul Barker, an obvious absence the moment you hear the album. As far as a theme for this album goes there isn’t any doubt, Al Jourgensen is angry about the current state of our country. 
       
When you lift up the cd from the tray there is a picture of George Bush with "X's"  over his eye and the letters E-V-I-L on the top, bottom, left and right of him. Three of the songs on this album, noW, WTV, and Wrong are about Bush and his administration. "Ask me why your feeling screwed, and I'll give you the answer, There's a Colon, Dick and Bush, just hammering away" He sings on noW. The cover of the album is the famous "Novus ordo seclorum" pyramid with an anarchy symbol going through it. 
       
How did I feel after hearing it? Well the first track was great....for about a minute then it  just became repetitive. Interesting enough though if you listen to the intro after Bush starts talking you hear a voice say "Track 23". Right away, the song kicks in. A nice headbanging riff. The second track "Waiting" has a really catchy line "Wasting my time in the USA". 

"Wrong" is a lot slower than the rest of the songs, which is great because your gonna have a hard time figuring out which songs are which considering most of them sound alike. "Warp City" is probably the worst song on the album. Al repeats the chorus "That's Warp City", not very impressive considering these are the guys who brought you "Jesus built my hotrod." 

As I said before if you fast forward the album after track 9 and go to #23 you hear what  seems to be a muffled stadium version of the "Star Spangled Banner" with some woman singing it then you are treated to ....noW..... the same song at the beginning. At first i thought, why would they do this? Then after hearing it again...yea they put the same track at the beginning again at the end. Nothing is different.  

Keep fast forwarding all the way up to track 69 (all you Tool fans will know they were the first band to do that, sorry Ministry you got beat) and you are treated to some backward voices, ooh scary, considering we are in the year 2004 and backward stuff isn’t cool anymore.  

Six smacks out of ten

Ministry fans will be happy.  As for the rest of us, easily passive. They have done better.
 

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