Review of Ministry: Sphinc Tour

Introduction

Oooh, what an amusing pun, must have taken at least 5 seconds for some twelve year olds to come up with the title for this disc. Probably the same ones who came up with one of their album titles "Dark Side of the Spoon".

If you`re not a fan of this band then you might not even have heard of them. They have in fact been around for about 20 years, and have released a lot of albums containing songs like "The Land of Rape and Honey", "Jesus Built My Hotrod" and "Tonight we Murder". Maybe those titles give you some idea of what to expect. There have also been three tribute albums released, which is a hell of a lot more than most bands get when they`re still alive.

If you`re still unsure what to expect, I`ll throw in another clue. On some of their tracks, there really are hidden messages when you play songs backwards. When it comes to playing songs backwards, I`m with the late, great Bill Hicks - "If you`re sitting round all day playing records backwards looking for satanic messages...you are Satan".

They have recently found a new fan in Steven Spielberg, as they were invited to appear in A.I., although this was largely based on their appearance at first. They also contributed what was described as "an archetypal Ministry track, all distorted drums, pulverized guitar chords and nigh-incomprehensible shouted vocals".

Video

From reading around, it would appear that sixty shows were filmed with just one hi-8 camera, by filmmakers Jeffrey Kinart and Doug Freel, and this DVD is a composite of hundreds of edits. So what you get is a 4:3 picture, that shows its hi-8 roots, but this seems to be in keeping with the band and their style. There`s nothing much wrong with it, but it`s not a reference piece. You can watch stage dives, moshing and weird looking fans, as well as the band themselves "performing" and gesturing to the crowd.

Audio

It seems that all the recordings were done on 2-track DAT cassettes, so we are promised something that sounds just like the real experience. We can listen to this in DD2.0 stereo or DD5.1 and that perhaps contradicts what was promised just a few seconds ago. I`m not fully aware of what the band are supposed to sound like but my guess would be that this is a reasonable interpretation. Again, it`s not reference quality, but the DD5.1 track has instruments placed around the mix and sounds quite good if you enjoy this sort of music.

Features

Some pictures of backstage passes. Don`t get too excited now.

Conclusion

Apparently this DVD "mixes cold, calculated precision with raucous chaos in a circus of mayhem". Maybe it does if you`re a fan. I`m not, so for me it mixed awful so-called "music" with visuals that make you want to avoid the band at all costs.

You`ll probably pick this up if you are a fan of the band, but it`s unlikely that you`ll go anywhere near it otherwise. The score for content is based on my personal opinion of the content only. The disc itself is technically fine, as the visuals are supposed to look like they do, and the sound is probably supposed to sound that way.