The iPod Observer

Support Our Site

iTunes Music Review - Cocked & Loaded (4 out of 5)

Cocked & Loaded
- 4 out of 5
- Revolting Cocks
- Reviewed by Peter Cohen
- It's hard to believe it's been more than a decade since Ministry founder and front man Al Jourgensen's side project Revolting Cocks released any new material. 2006 brings us Cocked and Loaded, a collection of material Jourgensen and company have been working on for a while. Revco's 2006 sound is very different than what it was in the 1980, and what's left is a faster-driving, more metallic sound that relies less on electronics and loops.
  
  Cocked and Loaded opens up with the fast-paced "Fire Engine" -- Jourgensen's pyromaniacal paean to fire trucks, co-written by Iggy Pop -- and never slows down. Other standouts include "Calienté,"a cover of Bauhaus' classic gothrock anthem "Dark Entries" sung by Butthole Surfers' Gibby Haines (recognizable to fans of the slasher flick Saw II, which included the song on its soundtrack), and "Dead End Streets," a collaboration with Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra that gives the listener a sense of what AC/DC might sound like with Jello on vocals and Jourgenson in the booth.
  
  Revco has always featured a rotating cast of characters, and in addition to Biafra and Haines, this incarnation of the project includes Rick Nielsen and Robin Zander from Cheap Trick, ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons and others.
  
  There's nothing on this album that will please Revco fans looking for the pounding gunfire mayhem of Revco classics like "Attack Ships On Fire" or their legendary cover of Olivia Newton-John's "(Let's Get) Physical." But it's 2006, and the times have changed. Nü-metal has all but come and gone, and like an irradiated cockroach after the nuclear holocaust, Jourgensen has survived.
  
  There's no question that Jourgenson has been a huge influence to industrial acts like Nine Inch Nails and shock rockers like Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie. Cocked and Loaded shows that influence goes both ways.
  
  All this is preamble to the Revco/Ministry tour -- the aptly named MasterBa Tour 2006 -- planned for later this year. If Cocked and Loaded is any indication of what to expect, it should be good, sweaty fun, with an occasional army boot in the face for good measure.
  - Peter Cohen