The Land of Rape and Honey is the third studio album by industrial metal band Ministry, released on October 11, 1988, by Sire Records. This is the first Ministry album to include bassist Paul Barker and marks a departure from the band’s previous two synthpop and EBM records. It incorporates heavy metal guitars and industrial music influences, and Al Jourgensen uses distorted vocals in his natural accent, rather than the faux British accent of previous albums. The resulting sound was influential in the industrial metal genre and is Jourgensen’s favorite Ministry album. The album was certified gold by the RIAA in January 1996. The album title comes from the slogan of Tisdale, Saskatchewan, whose motto at that time was “The Land of Rape and Honey”, a reference to the agricultural products rapeseed and honey. The band chose the name after seeing the slogan on a souvenir mug.
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.”
Tracklist:
Side 1
- Stigmata
- The Missing
- Deity
- Golden Dawn
- Destruction
Side 2
- The Land of Rape and Honey
- You Know What You Are?
- Flashback
- Abortive
Ministry
Al Jourgensen: vocals, guitar, programming, production, engineer
Paul Barker: bass, keyboards, programming, production, engineer
Additional personnel
William Rieflin: drums, programming, keyboards, guitar, background vocals
Chris Connelly : background vocals (2 & 3)
Eddie Echo: production (11)
Steve Spapperi: engineer
Julian Herzfeld: engineer
Keith “Fluffy” Auerbach: engineer
“Dog” (a pseudonym of Al Jourgensen): album cover
“Ill”: album cover
Brian Shanley: album cover
William Frederick Rieflin (September 30, 1960 – March 24, 2020)
