The Land of Rape and Honey is the third studio album by American industrialmetal bandMinistry, released on October 11, 1988 by Sire Records. The album marked a departure from the band's previous two synthpop and EBM records, expanding on several elements introduced in their preceding album Twitch. The less-commercial, industrial-laced collection of tracks incorporates elements of heavy metal such as fast electricguitar riffs, although only the album's first three songs use guitars extensively. This was the first Ministry album to include bassist Paul Barker, who would remain a member until his departure in 2004. It also marked a shift in vocal cadence, as Al Jourgensen's faux British accent present since With Sympathy was dropped, though it remains on the first track. The resulting sound is often cited as a pioneering work in the industrial metal genre, and is considered by Jourgensen as ostensibly the "first true" Ministry album, though he would experiment with this sound prior to its release under different names, such as 1000 Homo DJs. The album title comes from the slogan of Tisdale, Saskatchewan, whose motto at that time was "The Land of Rape and Honey", the local economy being based on the agricultural products rapeseed and honey. The band chose the name after seeing the slogan on a souvenir mug. The album was certified gold by the RIAA in January 1996, but was out of print for a few years in the early 2000s until it was re-issued by Wounded Bird Records in 2007. In 2016, Al Jourgensen cited The Land of Rape and Honey as his favorite Ministry album. He added that he was inspired to create "word cut-ups" from the works of Allen Toussaint and William S. Burroughs. Bands like Fear Factory, Linkin Park, Slipknot and Nine Inch Nails have cited this album as a major influence.
Artwork
The album cover is an electronically processed image of a burned corpse in the Leipzig-Thekla subcamp of Buchenwald. Jourgensen took a photograph while watching a Holocaust documentary on television and distorted the image himself. According to Jourgensen, it was originally rejected by the record label, but they later changed their mind after Jourgensen cut off the head of a roadkilled deer, put it in his truck, drove from Austin to Los Angeles, went into the Sire Records building, threw the head on the desk of the head of the art department and said, "Here's your new fucking cover."
The track "Stigmata" is featured in Richard Stanley's 1990 science fiction thriller Hardware, although the band shown performing the track is actually Gwar. In his autobiography, Jourgensen said that "Stigmata" is his least favorite song in the Ministry catalogue for its simplistic songwriting. The song does not have any actual guitars on it; the two chord riff, altered with a pitch shifter, was sampled. He wrote "Stigmata" at the last minute after realizing he needed another song to complete the album.
"Stigmata" is featured on the soundtrack of the film Atomic Blonde, with this version of the track being covered by Marilyn Manson.
"Golden Dawn" is featured in the trailer for the 1992 filmFreejack.
Track listing
Tracks 6 and 9 were bonus tracks on the CD release of the album.
Samples
"Golden Dawn"
*"You are being found guilty of covenants with the devil," "State your confession," "Confess! Confess!" "The Anti-Christ" - The Devils
*"Now hold up, man!" "Do it," "Everybody's got to die sometime," "I'm hurtin' real bad inside" - Platoon
"Abortive"
*"T minus 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4; we've got the main engine start—we have main...", "America's first space shuttle!" "And the shuttle has cleared the tower." - NASA
Trivia
Ministry had performed "Hizbollah" as early as 1984.
A post made on the official Wax Trax! Records Instagram in 2019 shows a handwritten production sheet featuring a number of tracks which did not appear on the final record. Certain songs were instead released through the bands' side projects, "Idiot" and "Blackened Heart" under Lead Into Gold and "Apathy" for 1000 Homo DJs.
