Chicago, IL · industrial metal · industrial-metal

Ministry

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Al Jourgensen's industrial-metal war machine — sampled sermons, mechanised riffing, and four decades of pure spite, still grinding forward.

Ministry formed in Chicago in 1981, built around Al Jourgensen, who had moved from Denver to attend the University of Illinois and fell in with the city's underground scene. The band started out as a synth-pop outfit before shifting toward a harsher, guitar-driven industrial sound over the years that followed.

Records including The Land of Rape and Honey, The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste and Psalm 69 set the template of distorted riffing, mechanised drum programming and heavily processed vocals layered with spoken-word samples. The first two were certified gold and Psalm 69 went platinum, helping carry industrial music to a wider rock audience.

Filth Pig, in 1996, marked a stylistic turn and gave the band its highest chart placing, though reviews were mixed and momentum slowed. Dark Side of the Spoon fared worse, Warner Bros. dropped Ministry, and Jourgensen entered rehab for substance abuse, putting the band on an extended hiatus in the early 2000s.

Ministry returned in 2003 with Animositisomina, the last album to feature longtime collaborator Paul Barker before his departure. The band then aimed a trio of albums squarely at the George W. Bush administration, Houses of the Molé, Rio Grande Blood and The Last Sucker, which revived its standing.

Guitarist Mike Scaccia, a frequent collaborator, died of a heart attack in 2012 and appeared posthumously on From Beer to Eternity. Jourgensen has kept Ministry going since through albums including AmeriKKKant, Moral Hygiene and Hopiumforthemasses, the band having broken up and reformed more than once along the way.

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industrial metalindustrial-metal