The Press Release:
Ahead of Ministry’s brand-new studio album, HOPIUMFORTHEMASSES, dropping March 1, 2024, the band will head out on a Spring 2024 North American tour, once again teaming up with touring comrades Gary Numan and Front Line Assembly.
The 29-date tour kicks off February 27 in San Francisco and runs through April 5 in Tucson, hitting major markets in the U.S. and Canada (see the full list of dates below). Tickets go on sale this Friday, October 6 at 10 AM local time. Find more info at www.ministryband.com/tour.
Says Ministry mastermind and creator Al Jourgensen, “So looking forward to doing another tour with Gary and the gang. We had such a blast the last time. The shows were amazing. Each band complements the other perfectly. Plus, both of our new releases are Kick Ass! Get your tickets and come join us.”
Continue reading Ministry Announces Spring 2024 North American Tour →
The Press Release:
Due to ongoing restrictions regarding social gathering amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Ministry will be rescheduling the July and August dates of the upcoming Industrial Strength Tour, originally scheduled to begin July 1. The new dates will kick off March 31, 2021 in Seattle and run through May 1, 2021 in San Francisco, hitting all the previously announced markets with an additional date added for Salt Lake City (on sale date TBA).
Continue reading Ministry Announces Rescheduled Dates For “The Industrial Strength” Tour In 2021 →
Artist: Ministry
Title: “Adios” Live
Label: 13th Planet Records
Release Date: 3/31/2009
Genre: Industrial Metal
Rating: 3/5
They say that all good things come to an end and such would be the case for Al Jourgensen’s Ministry who embarked on their “C U La Tour” back in the middle of 2008. Yes, believe it or not, Uncle Al had decided that the bands time was done and after a career that spanned some twenty eight years that he would wrap it up and focus on other adventures in music. The CD “Adios” is a good way to own a little piece of the bands history and keep it forever in your collection where it will remain and gather dust on the shelves long after you have uploaded it to your music player of choice. Such is the grim future of many of our CD’s as technology advances farther and farther each year. The tour was one that ran for about two hours each night when it was hitting the various spots along the way and that makes this release a little bit hard to swallow because it’s only one single CD and gives us thirteen tunes as opposed to a full show which would have been a smarter option. Having seen the concert I can say that it was a long night and the band delivered quite a few tunes, but here as I mentioned are only thirteen. While a powerful recording for the songs that it gives us, the other downside that some fans will find out when they begin to play it is the fact that it focuses on the bands final album “The Last Sucker” as opposed to presenting a lot of the time honored material which would have been perfect for a closing chapter live album. Of course with the downs also come the ups and one of these is the fact that Burton Bell (Fear Factory) makes an appearance and adds points to the concert. The band for the tour also featured Tony Campos (bass), Tommy Victor (guitar), Sin Quirin (guitar), Aaron Rossi (drums) and John Bechdel (keyboards). They sound energetic and do deliver the required goods but for someone who is a diehard fan this might end up being a disappointment more than something they cherish based on all of the exclusions that can easily be researched online.
Continue reading “Adios” Live by Ministry →
Artist: Ministry
Venue: Fillmore NY (New York, NY)
Opener: Meshuggah, Hemlock
Date: 5/1/2008
Label: 13th Planet Records
The Industrial Metal genre was never something that I paid much attention to or even called myself a fan of even though I had enjoyed some of the tunes I heard over the years from some of the scene’s biggest providers. The name that everyone immediately calls to mind when it comes to this sound is the band Ministry and this is largely because they spearheaded the genre when they were founded some 27 years ago by Al Jourgensen. He has directed and guided a number of different lineups over the years but without the ideas that he first brought to the table there would be no blueprint to follow by bands like Marilyn Manson, Linkin Park and many, many others. They have established a cult status that still packs a venue when they come to town to play and when an album is released it does well among the genres demographic. Despite all of this it was never my thing and while friends were always excitable about them I was mostly only curious about what I was missing. The NYC show that was happening tonight was the perfect chance to dig into the band and rather historic because they were calling it the “C U La Tour”, as Jourgensen has decided to stop touring and recording with his iconic act. The other reason I wanted to hit the show was because the dates were the only US appearances of the mighty Meshuggah for the year and that was unbelievable to me. Hemlock would start the night off but we didn’t get a chance to see them. Here is how some of the action took place.
Continue reading Ministry @ Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza (5/1/2008) →
Artist: Ministry
Title: “Cover Up”
Label: 13th Planet Records
Release Date: 4/1/2007
Genre: Industrial Metal
Rating: 4/5
Just when you thought it was safe to purchase original music again along comes Ministry with an album of —– you guessed it —– COVERS!!!! It was only a couple of months ago that the band released their final official studio album with “The Last Sucker” and now it seems as though Al Jourgensen will officially be closing the book on Ministry by joining in on the all too common trend of offering up their own take on a number of classic tunes. It would seem that these kind of albums have been released by the boatload over the past couple of years and while some of them rock (Shaw Blades, Tesla, Queensryche), there are others that are not quite extraordinary when it came down to it (Poison, Atrocity). With so many of them already being delivered to the music fan of today one would wonder just how good or bad Ministry would actually do with the idea and oddly enough it wasn’t all that bad when it is looked at on the whole. Let’s start at the beginning which is an interesting version of the Rolling Stones classic “Under My Thumb”. The tune is sung by Fear Factory’s Burton Bell, and while he does a good job of it, this is just one of those tunes that I am not crazy about any reworking being done on. Next up is “Bang A Gong” and it’s done rather traditionally and doesn’t deviate too much from the original in my opinion. I liked the bands take on Golden Earrings “Radar Love”, but found it quite weird to hear the drum solo being done by the programming since that is such a great part of the original tune. Either way it managed to work. Prong’s Tommy Victor was also a big help to the albums recording and offers up some cool vocals during “Space Truckin’” and “Mississippi Queen” with his raspy growl. These are thrashier than I would have expected to hear and that was interesting since both of the originals have this slow chugging Bluesy vibe to them even though they are heavy numbers to begin with. I enjoyed the way “Black Betty” came out but admitted to being a minor patron of the tune in the first place while I felt that the bearded boys in ZZ Top would smile a wicked grin had they heard just how different their “Just Got Paid” could be done.
Continue reading “Cover Up” by Ministry →
Where Heavy Music & Pop Culture Collide
