Ministry – Filth Pig

Quite amazing how Ministry update and change their sound with every album, here they provide hard hitting industrial sludge metal. The title track is like taking Depeche Mode's I "Feel You" and soaking it in a swamp to spawn that proper filthy Southern monster sound. But they never become predictable, "Lay Lady Lay" is just a mind-boggling cover version, almost pop-like, a fitting light hearted dessert to finish off all that bottom heavy sludge with.

There is a perception that Filth Pig was different from what Ministry did. But actually it does not sound radically different from what went before, simply a whole lot less varied. Much of the sound of Filth Pig carries on from Scarecrow from the previous album. There is a tendency for those who dislike this album to focus on the 'sludge' of say The Fall (or basically tracks 5-9), rather than focus on Reload or Brick Windows; but Al Jourgensen had done sludge before - Lard's Time to Melt, a real endurance test if you don't like Filth Pig!

Filth Pig confirmed Ministry's sound as guitar driven, rather than electronic as it had been in the 80s, and that seems to be only difference.

Back in '96 I had just heavily dosed on Valium when I first heard this album and liked it immediately.
The song "Filth Pig" is one of my all-time favorites of ANY genre. "Lava" rocks it! An album full of sludge if there ever was one. "Dead Guy" makes me sad. "Useless" need I say more.... I'm not a Bob Dylan by any stretch of the imagination, (Fucking 'boomers. If they did what they claimed to do we wouldn't be in the mess we're in.) But that hazy night saw me listen to "Lay Lady Lay" a few times in a row. I had read about it a magazine and I wanted to see how MINISTRY did it. I just kept dropping the needle on it. Yes my first experience with the "Filth" was on vinyl! Now I don't listen to that track at all because the rest of the album is KILLER HEAVY.

I could go on but I will say this much. I think "Filth Pig" "Dark Side of the Spoon" and "Animositisomina" are VASTLY under rated. Warners wanted more of Psalm 69 and instead got the three best albums Ministry ever made. Yeah you heard me. Although "Houses..." "Rio Grande..." and "Last.." kick ass too.

I'm just a Ministry fan from LORAH onward.

Just got Relapse. Read good and bad reviews.

And just got the "Fix" film from the "Filth Pig" era. Gonna watch it as soon as I finished here.

MINISTRY...MINISTRY...MINISTRY!!!

Major labels are a for-profit concept, they occupy the repugnant territory of commerce being made out of art. It is for this reason I find Filth Pig to be such an excellent work. Warner Bros. had to promote this thing months before it came out, via the radical left turn of The Fall. When Luxa and Pan did return to the public eye, it was no longer as the darlings of LOLapalooza but as yet again, renegades under the corporate banner. There was just enough smelling of profit to get away with this, but it's no surprise the band were dropped after their next album Dark Side of the Spoon.

I cannot think of a louder or more strident 'fuck you' being delivered to a record company than Filth Pig. Trading in the hard and fast elements of previous work, Ministry spewed venom. They vomited bile onto the expectations of their new-found fair-weather mtv fans. Slowing it down tempo-wise proved to be a very prescient move on the part of Jourgenson and Barker. I hadn't thought them capable of such glorious grind.

This is when Ministry became a seriously powerful rock band. Call their brand of rock whatever you like but there are no complaints here about what they accomplished. It's a shame that this outing proved to be a one-off, the arrangements and overall complexity still reveal themselves further with each listen. 15 years later.

I totally agree with the other reviewers. Filth pig is maybe the best ministry album...well at least for me it is. And it is one of my all time favourite albums. Don't know why, but everyone expects from ministry fast and speed metal type releases. They fell in that trap with their last albums and that's why the good tunes are missing from them. Filth pig has killer songs like ''The fall'', ''Dead guy'', ''Lava'' and ''Filth pig''. I have a feeling that this is Al Jourgensens favourite Ministry album. If you're a Ministry fan and you don't like this album...Sorry you're not a ministry fan

This release, with its machine-music guitar-drone flow, has a particular effect of enveloping the listener in beautiful rhythmic waves of sound. (Yes, with a hard edge — this is Ministry!) A wonderful album.

To me this personally is the best Ministry release - even though I like most their albums. What makes Filthpig special is the heavyness and the handling of the bass I feel. This is the CD I really recommend - much more than the past releases after it!