MINISTRY — With Sympathy (review)

Album · 1983 · Non-Metal

3/5 · 2024-11-08
UMUR

"With Sympathy" is the debut full-length studio album by US synth pop (later industrial metal act) Ministry. The album was released through Arista Records in May 1983. It was released in Europe under the title "Work for Love", featuring an alternate tracklist, replacing "What He Say" with "Do the Etawa" (which is not featured on the US version), and featuring a different running order of the tracks.

Ministry was founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1981 by producer, singer and instrumentalist Al Jourgensen. Jourgensen had been active in the Chicago post-punk underground scene with various artists since he moved there from Denver in 1978, but he opted to form his own band in 1981 and started writing material using an ARP Omni synthesizer, a drum machine, and a reel-to-reel tape recorder. A shifting cast of musicians were in and out of the band in the formative years but when it came time to record the material for "With Sympathy", the band were down to the duo of Jourgensen (Vocals, Keyboards) and Stephen George (drums).

"With Sympathy" is an interesting release to review, as most people coming to the album today, are fans of Ministry´s later industrial metal sound, and the material on "With Sympathy" is arguably as far removed from that sound as it can be. People will have very different expectations and prerequisites when listening to and experiencing "With Sympathy". Stylistically this is synth pop greatly influenced by contemporary UK artists like Depeche Mode, Japan, and New Order. The influence is so great, that Jourgensen even adds a faux British accent to his vocals, which is a bit funny as he is an American, but it actually works pretty well within the band´s synth pop sound. His vocals are otherwise well performed and he has a suiting voice for this type of music (again far removed from his future raw self). While he can sing melodic and mainstream oriented, he does sometimes add a slightly more aggressive touch to his singing style, which reminds me a bit of Jaz Coleman from Killing Joke. It´s not that he distorts his vocals, but more the attitude and his delivery of the vocals.

"With Sympathy" is a well produced 80s release, featuring a detailed and professional sound production. The material is quite catchy and well written too, and it´s interesting that Ministry weren´t more than moderately successful with the release of "With Sympathy", as there is definitely enough quality songwriting and performances here to equal at least the early releases by some of the above mentioned artists. Moderately successful shouldn´t be understood as if Ministry didn´t have any success though as the album did break into the middle part of the Billboard 200 album chart, and they landed themselves the supporting gig for The Police during the North American leg of their "Synchronicity" (1983) tour. Jourgensen however soon became dissatisfied with the label support from Arista Records and also the fact that he felt he was pressured into creating more commercially appealing versions of the songs that he had written and imagined otherwise. Add to those reasons, that he simply became more interestered in raw music styles like hardcore, and it´s only natural that "With Sympathy" ended up being the only mainstream oriented synth-pop album released under the Ministry monicker (although their next album is also an electronic synth pop/rock album it´s a much harder edged and darker release). It´s still a worthy release to fans of the genre though (and probably sadly forgotten by most) and a 3 - 3.5 star (65%) rating is warranted.