✦✦✧✧ Al-Pal ushers in 2024 with what is allegedly Ministry’s penultimate album. What that means is more guitar-forward industrial, with a shiny new production patina and not-at-all-novel spoken word samples, acting as a backdrop for anything that a left-leaning American might rail against these days (toxic masculinity, white nationalism, climate change, MAGA, you name it).

✦✧✧✧ I’ll always have a love for Ministry, but I don’t hear a compelling reason on this album for them to come out of retirement. Very dated industrial, with the musicianship shoved back behind the thoroughly predictable sound bites from hated politicians. Sludgier than the Mike Scaccia-era Ministry that we loved so much.