MINISTRY / The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste (1989)

The industrial genre owes a huge debt to Killing Joke, but Ministry really ought to owe them some royalties, too. They took everything that was good about KJ and turned it to max by adding extra aggression (borrowed from thrash) and some film samples, then fed that through a distorted sieve.
Allowing Chris Connelly to take primary vocal duties on some tracks helped immensely. Al's distorted diatribes are great in context, but Connelly's deranged ramblings are, for me, a highlight on an album by a band that in turn became as influential to others as KJ had been to them. It took Industrial to the masses.

Songs of Note: Thieves; Breathe

4½ hypocrites and bastards out of 5