Book Review: 33 1/3: The Land Of Rape And Honey

Release Date: May 1st, 2025

The story of Ministry’s unlikely origins is well known. The Godfathers of industrial metal started as a synthpop outfit. Their 1983 debut, With Sympathy, featured upbeat, poppy synth rhythms, hook-heavy songs about love, and frontman Al Jourgensen singing in a phony British accent. After its lukewarm reception and lack of support from Artista Records, Jorgensen was hellbent on severing ties with the record. He needed to prove he wasn’t another Wham! or Thompson Twins. He wanted to create his own sound and play by his own rules. This would lead him to record Ministry’s most frightening, brutal, and influential record to date. Featuring new interviews with album contributors, including Jourgensen and Paul Barker, Jason Pettigrew recounts the anger, chaos, depravity, and determination that birth the album in his new 33 1/3 book, The Land of Rape and Honey.

Pettigrew brings us into the studio to see how The Land of Rape and Honey (LORAH going forward) was made and it’s not pretty. It’s as complex, crazed, and deranged as the record sounds. It was fueled by many sleepless nights, anger, drugs…lots of drugs, and an unconventional editing method inspired by William S. Burroughs. The process involves cutting reels of tape and rearranging them to change the sound. This method was arduous and took the longest to complete. Jourgensen estimates it took nearly a year to finish editing alone. They also had unlimited access to the then-revolutionary Fairlight synthesizer, which they loaded up with samples from movies like Platoon and Full Metal Jacket. Little did Jourgensen know, sampling would become a huge part of Industrial Metal.

Along with quick analyses of the tracks featured on LORAH, the book also covers many of the tracks recorded during this time but ended up on other Jourgensen projects. With little label interference and high-end instruments at their hands, Barker and Jourgensen used session time to record whatever they wanted, deciding after the fact if it was a good fit for Ministry. The sessions were intense, long, and non-stop, but proved fruitful. Whatever didn’t work for the record ended up on one of Jourgensen’s side projects. Throughout the book we get quick rundowns of bands like PTP, Revolting Cocks, Pailhead, and 1000 Homo DJs straight from those involved.

The nuanced details about the album’s creation, from the recording sessions to promotion, are used to highlight the book’s main point: LOAH was a cultural landmark not just for Ministry, but for the genre at large. For Jourgensen, the album represents freedom. For once, he was able to record what he wanted on his terms. It was unconventional, at times it was destructive, but he finally hit upon what he wanted Ministry to sound like. The sound that would come to define Ministry. In the process, he created a genre that would be known as Industrial Metal, a sound that would be imitated by several artists and bands in Ministry’s wake.

Taking the foundations of synthpop and EBM and fusing them with metal would be a huge success for Ministry. It brought the genre to the mainstream, at least for a little bit. Artists like Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, Static-X, and Fear Factory ran with the sound. It even influenced new genres like nu-metal. Even artists outside the genre, like AFI, Deadmau5, and Thursday, cited Ministry as an influence. There’s no question that the LORH still holds up nearly four decades later. But as Pettigrew shows throughout the book, it’s a groundbreaking record. Ministry’s approach to songwriting, recording, editing, and sampling created an album that didn’t sound like anything else at the time. 37 years later, there’s still nothing like it. It spawned a new genre, changed Ministry’s career, and made a cultural impact that’s still felt to this day.

Pettigrew’s study of LORAH is an insightful, fascinating look at the chaos, determination, anger, and dedication that went into creating Ministry’s landmark album. Somehow, he crams so much information about the album, touring, promotion, and everything in between without it feeling verbose or overwhelming. It’s a great deep dive into the album that fans new and old are sure to enjoy. The book gets back to what made the 33 1/3 series so appealing. Stories about how iconic albums came to be and their lasting impact. Over the years, the series has expanded to include critical analysis, academic readings, and personal interpretations of selected records. While those can make for a fascinating read, Pettigrew brings us back to the core of the series: stories about how great music gets made.

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