How about that? It seems like it's the right time for the true bands of industrial metal music to come back and show that they still kick ass more than any new act that might have even tried to conquer the throne. After 2003's "Animositisomina", Mr. Jourgensen is back with his cowboy hat and his leather jacket with an explosive album made of walls of vicious guitar riffs, loops & samples, furious drumming and his signature style thin treated vocals (sometimes even easing up on the filtering a little bit - like in "Arp City" or "Orm" for example). At first, the fast-paced music of "Houses of the Molé" (recoded in Texas) reminded me of Die Krupps' "Rings of Steel" ("No", "Arp City" and "TV" go almost death metal style with the guitars), but it immediately became clear that Ministry is going for it, all the way. It's the original sound of Ministry, but stronger and heavier. You're in for a rough ride: harded guitars and powerful sonic attack, preserving the unique "Psalm 69" sound, especially on vocals (effects, long screams, verses and choruses). It's the whole package, the whole nine yards. It's Ministry with a southwest spin. Another important element that seems to be dominating this record is the shadow of George W.. It seems to be a trend lately, but I am glad to see that people follow at least this trend... It's time to send him in early retirement, and Ministry's clever sampling, cutting, pasting, arranging of the prez's unmistakable and irritating tone of voice goes beyond the played out speech sampling. Also included are loads of samples from TV ("TV" sports sounds and voices from Law and Order, preachers, commercials, news etc). "Houses of the Molé" comes with two hidden bonus psalm-tracks, conveniently and cleverly located at track #23 (on the opening track of the CD Bush's voice says the words "Psalm 23") and of course #69 (a number that pops up in several occasions, such as track count, track listing etc). This totally rocks!

Next October KMFDM will start their 2004 world tour, but if you have missed them on the 2003 WWIII Tour and you can't make any of the dates of the 2004 tour (check out their website for more info) then you might wanna consider buying either the CD or, even better, the DVD of the tour. While the DVD (see review in these pages) is already out and for obvious reasons is definitely a smarter purchase than the audio-only CD, this disc will be available later in July for all of you who still don't have a DVD player or who want to listen to a KMFDM concert in the car. The tracklist of both CD and DVD includes: "WWIII", "From Here On Out", "Blackball", "Ultra", "Brute", "Stars & Stripes", "Pity for the Pious", "Moron", "Revenge", "Bullets Bombs & Bigotry", "Light", "Juke Joint Jezebel", "Intro", "A Drug Against War". What is surprising and at the same time maybe slightly disappointing is that, except for the audience noise, the live CD is practically identical to their studio album (except for the song "Intro" that introduces all the band members in a very funny, original and song lyrics style). The band is so precise and faithful, which is great, but at the same time doesn't leave much space for differences of any kinds that might make a gig special or worth remembering, if you know what I mean. Of course in the end what counts is that the band is great and fucking kicks ass!

With a line up consisting of Sascha K, Andy Selway, Lucia Cifarelli, Raymond Watts and Steve White, the legendary industrial rockers KMFDM embarked on their WWIII tour with a video crew shooting away hours worth of live and basckstage footage. Fortunately Sanctuary Records Group released both a CD (due in stores on July 27th) and DVD (out yesterday, June 22nd) as testimony of this great tour. The DVD packs in the same tracklist of the CD (read the CD review for more info) but in addition to the thirteen songs it features a bunch of interesting and funny behind the scene footage and bonus material, which includes: three music video clips (an animated video of "Skurk", a very creative stop-motion video of "Ultra" with Lego toys and some archivial footage in the clip of "Stars & Stripes"), tons of interviews with band and crew members, huge amounts of offical tour and unofficial fan photos slides (if you ever took a photo with them during this tour chances are you are probably in this DVD yourself!), videos of the making of the western intro, tour bus footage and jokes, birthday parties, blogs and journals, recording studio footage, whale watching footage, lyrics, e-card, press kite and much more... Basically one of the most content-packed DVDs you'll ever get on the market, period. Worth every penny you spend! The quality of the live shows footage is excellent. Good lighting, good sound, multiple angles, multiple cameras, footage from different gigs with different costumes and apparel and totally flawless performances! Jam-packed with extras, this DVD definitely gets two thumbs up for the quantity of material, and as always with KMFDM, you know it's more than just quantity, it's top notch quality too!

Boyd Rice, a.k.a. NON, released his first ever DVD, which is also the first DVD release by the funnily name Soleimoon sub-label Caciocavallo. This DVD includes a live performance of NON in Osaka, Japan, where Rice recites his war anthems and other mostly military related lyrics in his SM57 while four drummers hammer and bang the skins of four oil-can-shaped cattle drums (the only other instrumentation was an ancient tibetan horn and pre-recorded sounds such as bell tolls, various recordings and lots of samples of speeches and movies). Unfortunately the quality of the video is very bad. Although the camera was on a tripod above the crowd and occasionally the operator moved the lens back and forth to close up on Rice and them zoom out to get the whole stage, the bad (as in almost absent) lighting doesn't help at all and the overall quality is just terrible (pixel effect). In spite of all of this, the importance of this performance is undeniable (and the dozen of bootlegs that were made of it in the past 15 years is proof of that) mostly because it was the first time that such a star-studded line up came together: Michael Moynihan (Blood Axis), Douglas Pearce (Death In June), Tony Wakeford (Sol Invictus) and Rose McDowall (Strawberry Switchblade), who sings one short piece and who at the time was living in Japan and was extremely popular thanks to her band.
The DVD also includes two short movies by Rice: "Invocation (One)", which shows a black and white masturbation of a she-male; and "Black Sun", which is an occult color-patch-art-work of svastikas and was premiered at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 1996.
Finally "Live in Osaka" makes up for the poor video quality of the show with an interesting commentary by Rice (recorded specifically for this DVD and containing lots of useful info and funny stories) as well as shots from Japan and Europe showed as slides with terrible music.
This DVD is region-free (so you can play it all over the world without restrictions) and also contains a tour diary written by Rice during his 1998 European tour with the Austrian band The Blutharsch.

First off this is the first release by Skinny Puppy in several years and comes to us from their new label SPV. The current line-up features Puppy originals Nivek Ogre and cEvin Key with the additional talents of Mark Walk (WELT). While most of us never expected to see another Puppy album except possibly the continued 'archives' collections this is a most pleasant surprise. The Greater Wrong of Right remains true to the Skinny Puppy sound and contains elements featured in all previous albums without sounding nostalgic in any way and instead points further towards a continued future for the band. The track "Use Less" features the talents of Wayne Static of Static-X on vocals and Danny Carey of Tool on acoustic drums. Simply put fans will be more than pleased with the results. This release shows that while members have taken a rather long hiatus to work on their own projects that they have not lost anything during that time but instead have grown stronger and collectively have updated their approach and skills. As always Skinny Puppy forge their own way in electro music without ever submitting to trends and instead put forth their own unique efforts which continue to influence generations of musicians and fans alike. Having been a fan since Bites, I still think the band is simply amazing and worth a listen by anyone looking for something unique, intelligent, dark, and otherworldly.