To hear longtime Ministry mainstays Al Jourgensen and Paul Barker tell it, Dark Side of the Spoon is some sort of lighthearted comic romp. Getting there was anything but; virtually completed in 1997, most of the original Spoon was scrapped and rerecorded the following year for an eventual 1999 release. But longtime Ministry devotees needn't worry that Jourgensen and Barker have traded in the band's formulaic hard-edged mix of heavy-riffing guitars, percussion loops, and techno-industrial flourishes for a dash of Noël Coward. In fact, aside from the song titles--"Nursing Home," "Eureka Pile," "Vex and Siolence"--listeners without a lyric sheet handy are going to be hard-pressed to enjoy the witticisms present in the album's typically overwrought, electronically subverted vocals. And who knows? Maybe if one sang Gilbert and Sullivan through a distorted megaphone in an echo-prone parking structure, it would sound just like this. Allow us the liberty of mixing our equestrian metaphors: Spoon only proves how tough it is to paint a horse of a different color when you're a one-trick pony. --Jerry McCulley