Just had this song on the brain, decided to post a thread. There are other metal songs that are better - many obvious ones, but Master of Puppets is my fave so I will cite it - many have more crushing riffs - lots of Sabbath, Pantera, et al. - but don’t think there is a song more relentless than Just One Fix. It sets up a solid, bludgeoning riff, then sticks with it, never backing off, never changing tempo and just hammers it home. And, for some reason, it completely works - not boring, not monotonous - just a compelling song; no way to listen without banging my head…
Which of course was the perfection of Psalm 69 as a whole. A great deal of early to mid 90’s industrial/metal could get really monotonous. A lot of groups seemed to have a great grasp on technology, but poor song structuring skills (KMFDM springs to mind). I think this is where early Ministry (The faux Depeche Mode era) really helped Al Jorgensen further on down the line. The structure and pattern on the vocals is used to change the feel of the song instead of a change in rhythm or key.
Land Of Rape and Honey was the first Ministry I ever heard too. That album was awesome.
My favorite Ministry is the LARD albums they did with Jello Biafra. Especially the first full length, The Last Temptation Of Reid. “Drug Raid At 4 A.M.” is one of the most intense songs ever etched in vinyl.
I will have to listen to it again - I loaned my copy out (not the smartest move when one feels the urge to post about the song, I know), but I remember there being variations on the theme - play the riff, add other instruments, play the beginning of the riff and let there be dramatic quiet, etc… - but it is all based on the main riff. It’s not like a move to fingerpicking in the middle of Master of Puppets, or even to an equally-bludgeoning bridge section with different chords…
Well, there are little bridges and the like, as well as one point where they stop the song for a few seconds, but for the most part, once it gets going, it keeps going on its own momentum.
Of course, the genius of Ministry was taking the then-monotonous beat of Wax Trax! style industrial and doing the same thing with guitars. They just happened to be in the right place at the right time and better than everyone else. Unfortunately, the angsty kids picked up on Reznor’s whining so Ministry got left in the dust, but it was a nice few years.
If the relentlessness is what you like, I would definitely recommend checking out Antisominista or whatever their album before House of the Mole was. It was definitely better than Dark Side and Filth Pig, and the production was incredible (alhtough the one thing that Ministry never could figure out was what to do with anything below 350 Hz which always bothered me). It sounds like a cross between Filth Pig’s production and Mind. Of course, House of the Mole is significantly better although I think they cannibalized a lot of their own riffs to make it. For some reason. It also sounds more like a RevCo album than Ministry. The vocals are pretty weak, but No W and Worm are the best on it. And they have one of the more clever logos/CD covers (that is, on the CD itself) that I’ve seen in awhile.
There’s definitely a point around the 3-minute mark where the riff that was playing at the beginning is not being played. I’m listening on a portable mp3 player, so I don’t have much ability to figure out exactly when, but when I get home, I’ll try to pinpoint it.
As far as relentlessness goes, there’s nothing more so than Earth’s Earth 2. It’s a little slower, but it keeps going for some time.
Funny you should say that - I also saw Lollapalooza 92 (my first concert at the tender age of 14), except in Chicago. During the Ministry set, there was a guy in front of us that was passed out on the lawn and even his buddies were saying “How the hell can you sleep through this??”
Whoa. That same year ('92) my friend got a bunch of us free ticket to Lollapalooza. He and I were basically there to see Ministry, and he got wasted and fell asleep right before the Ministry set!!! I tried to wake him up and finally gave up and went into the pit. He was so bummed, he bought tickets for the next day’s show!
While I’ll agree that Trent has done some whiney stuff in his day, the Broken E.P. was released two months or so after Psalm 69 and the music is much in the same vein (no Al Jorgensen heroin joke intended). Hard rocking guitar over industrial electro beats.
Granted Ministry had found the formula much earlier than NIN, both were at the industrial/metal apex in the summer of 92. The whole genre was over in the summer of 93 with Fear Factory’s Fear is a Mindkiller remix E.P. when real industrial groups (Front 242, Front Line Assembly, etc) got into remixing metal albums.
And ever since we’ve been stuck with nothing but crap. Hopefully with Ministry’s remaining two albums they’ll turn it back up a notch (Al sounded like he was going to fall asleep on a couple tracks on HoM). I have to admit that I got on the whole Wax Trax industrial thing a bit late (first CD I actually bought myself was Psalm 69) and the late-80s have always been the halcyon days of industrial for me. After 1993 though…nothing.
VNV’s ok, but they’re kind of like Laibach-lite. Frontline was always runner-up in my book. I did like Fear Factory’s Soul of a New Machine, but after that, it seems they got lost in the midrange band on the EQ and never found their way out. The only bands keeping it real (as it were) are Laibach (why oh why did it take me ten years to buy one of their CDs?) and Android Lust, although I don’t think she really wants to make it big.
Industrial thrash metal may be more or less dead, but there are still industrial metal bands out there. They’re just coming to it through nu metal and related styles. Whether you think that’s a good thing or not is up to you.
I think the song loses steam a little past halfway through the song, when the bass drum riff goes from WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM (rest) WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM (rest) WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM to just being nonstop. The riff also goes down in volume a little bit.
I liked The Land of Rape and Honey and Parts of The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste when I was in high school / early college but found everything they did after TMIATTTT to be pretty boring.
Agreed, but when your musical genre includes Rob Zombie’s Über-untalented stylings, you’ve not only jumped the shark, but as soon as you landed you cut yourself up and jumped directly into the tank.
Isn’t ‘Just One Fix’ sampling Slayer? I agree it fucking rocks, getting more intense as it goes along, but I thought it was all made up of samples.
Psalm 69 was the last decent thing they did IMO. On the speed scale, check out ‘TV Song’ the B side of ‘Jesus built my Hotrod’. I think its speeded up, but its some fast shredding anyhow.
Check out Converges ‘Jane Doe’ for super heavy intensity also.
