MINISTRY

Hopiumforthemasses (Nuclear Blast)

Al Jourgensen may look weirdly like Victor Lewis-Smith these days, but his commitment to being a righteous irritant doesn’t seem to have changed much since Chicago vomited up Ministry in the early 1980s. Big Al is 65, and could be as right-wing as Holly Vallance by now, but on their 13th album, Hopiumforthemasses, with its silly title and silly artwork, the topics for vivisection include inaction on climate change, white supremacy and incel toxicity. Its patchwork splurge of metal guitars and sloganeering samples is like channel-flipping during the apocalypse. 

So the spirit is strong, even if musically there’s a little too much generic industrial growling, and the highlights are: the incongruous, great surf guitar interlude during Just Stop Oil. Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello turning up to lord over the weird crypto-soul of Cult Of Suffering. And at the end, a cover of Ricky’s Hand by 80s electro DIY oddbod Fad Gadget. It’s goofy, and sounds like Devo. Funny old world.

words WILL STEEN