Ministry - Sphinctour (2001)

Related:
Lard - The Last Temptation of Reid (1990)
Lard - Pure Chewing Satisfaction (1997)

Here's something that no one likes: live albums with a bunch of loud-ass audience noise between every track. It's annoying, it breaks up the flow of the album, it makes the tracks super-awkward to put on playlists, and you know what? It's goddamn indulgent. Like, we get it, lots of people like your band, and they were super-stoked to be at your show.

Ministry, of course, don't play that game. Time elapsed between songs on Sphinctour averages around 5-10 seconds -- a quiet snippet of crowd applause, maybe a "this one's called [blank]," and we're on to the next one. This fact alone puts it in the top 5th percentile of live albums.

Then, of course, there's the music, which is uniformly great. Five songs from Psalm 69, five from Filth Pig (my favorite Ministry record and the album for which they were touring when Sphinctour was recorded) and one from The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste to round it out. True to Filth Pig's harsh, sludge-y tendencies, the album closes with a 1-2-3 punch of droning dirges that accounts for almost half of the album's runtime.

Track listing:
1. Psalm 69 (Live at Elysee Montmarte, Paris)
2. Crumbs (Live at Congresscenter, Stuttgart)
3. Reload (Live at Convention Center, Albuquerque)
4. Filth Pig (Live at the Varsity Arena, Toronto)
5. Just 1 Fix (Live at Aragon #2, Chicago)
6. N.W.O. (Live at the Palladium #1, Los Angeles)
7. Hero (Live at Gaswerk, Hamburg)
8. Thieves (Live at Mercer Arena, Seattle)
9. Scarecrow (Live at Jesolo Beach Festival, Venice)
10. Lava (Live at Dour Festival, Brussels)
11. The Fall (Live at Brixton Academy, London)

Some creepy guy keeps asking
"How the fuck do you sleep at night?"
With a frozen dream and a borrowed hope that died

You should also listen to:

Skrew -
Shadow of Doubt (1996)

Corrections House - Hoax the
System / Grin with a Purpose (2013)