Ministry – Hate To Go (Take Out Or Deliver)
Ministry – Hate To Go (Take Out Or Deliver)
Cleopatra Records
Release Date: 30/10/26
Review by Metalphysicist
10/10
The first time came in contact with Ministry was back in 1992, when I was fooling around on ‘my MTV’ to find out if there were any new songs to surprise me, and then the video clip for ‘NOW’ (‘New World Order’) started playing and it blew my mind: that song was simply astonishing: ‘NOW’ was a bad ass riff oriented track – not simply two heavy guitars playing along each other; ‘NOW’ had layers and layers of hypnotic riffs and full speed drum/drum machine austere conduction and there was also ‘this cool guy’ vociferant singing on the top of the punishing Metal mayhem. A couple of months later, I watched ‘Jesus Built My Hotrod’ video clip, and it seemed to me as if those guys were having lots of fun among white noise, vocoder nonsense lyrics and ridiculous drum session – locomotive style.
I was already introduced to Industrial bands by that time listening to such bands as Front 242, Nine Inch Nails, but then I realized that Industrial Metal had a godfather, and only one: Ministry! Of course, since then I became a huge fan of all things Ministry: my first CD was “In Case You Didn’t Feel Like Showing Up” (1990), “Psalm 69” and etcetera. I kept following the band until late 90’s, especially the iconic album “Dark Side of the Spoon”(1999).
After releasing freaking 16 studio albums, Al Jorgensen announced that the band would drop the last Ministry effort “’Hate to Go (Take Out Or Deliver)”, to be released on October 31, via Cleopatra Records. So, let’s take a look to find out what Ministry have just delivered for their loyal fan base.
For starters, I’d say that “’Hate to Go …” is pretty much a compilation of the average of the best songs that Ministry had delivered during the 90’s and the first decades of 2000’s. However, back then, Al was living the moment, now he was aware that there wouldn’t be another Ministry demented sessions of processed riffs, drums, samples and aggressive vocal singing.
“’Hate to Go” doesn’t work as an album where Ministry saved ‘the best for last’, but, even so, Ministry has released a damn good record that does justice for what the band was always all about: political and social agenda sung through a crazy collage of pieces of addresses from everyone from filthy politics pigs until Al Jourgensen himself. Collage Rock that is, at least that is the definition that Al gives to Ministry sonority – Industrial Metal sounds like an accurate definition of what the band is all about, though.
The album starts off with the song ‘Crickets’, a kind of self-citation of Ministry’s walls of riffs, an aggro vibe in the vocals and the songs have a very catchy chorus section. ‘Voices of Hate’ goes in that same direction, counting on landscapes for Al’s vocal experimentation and, in the middle section, there is a guitar solo which is amazing. It is all here for Ministry fans.
On ‘Clown Car’, that kind of 80s Thrash Metal rifferama emerges, meeting full layers of guitars and ferocious drum playing, a kind of sonority which reminded me of the songs heard on “AmeriKKKant” (2018). ‘We Hate’, the first single of the album, is actually an honest postcard of what is going on in “We Hate to Go”. The song is more cadenced and the guitar solo is an amazing wah-wah-pentatonic-like sonority.
‘Delete’ is one of the highlights of the album, and it sounds like pure vintage industrial metal: mechanical, abrasive, and relentlessly heavy. The lyrics are very cool, talking about the social media generation that is satisfied to ‘eat, sleep, and scroll’ without realizing that we are the product, and not the Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook lifestyle. Once again, the collage of vocal samples takes over to build the lyrics.
‘Grifter’ takes it easier on the guitar playing, opening landscapes with wide spaces for Al to sing over. I swear that, this time, Ministry stole, once again, the melody of some 80s hit. I was trying to find out which song that might be, but I failed. I suspect it could be ‘Harlem Shuffle’, a semi-hit from the Rolling Stones’ 80s era. But Gemini told me that I was wrong. Damn it!
Speaking of eventual Artificial Intelligence running around the tracks, I am positive to say that there is nothing like this happening here – let’s not forget that it was Al and his bandmates who started with that kind of authentic, complex industrial noises. So, don’t get it wrong; things are upside down here. ‘The White Man Lied’ is a ‘not so cool’ song; maybe we could call it a filler, but the Teutonic vibe in the chorus pays off the listening (it sounded to me like a Marilyn Manson-like groove).
‘Singularity’ is another single from “We Hate to Go”, and now we are back to the layer of riffs sounding like a crossover between Thrash Metal and Industrial Metal. Even though this song doesn’t reinvent the wheel of Industrial Metal, the locomotive is on fire here; even the solo echoes the hypnotic phrases from Slayer.
The album “We Hate to Go” comes to an end with the song ‘Burned Out’, which has a catchy chorus, as simple as it is supposed to be in industrial music. In this one, the bass playing is highlighted, and, combined with layers of white noise and so on, the ‘sample singing’ destroys the local and global politics of Donald Trump – ICE, Venezuela, Syria (again), and the lack of freedom of speech (except if you are Al Jourgensen, who doesn’t give a shit about being prosecuted by a government agency). That kind of political approach is something that Ministry is going to leave as a legacy for fresh industrial bands that might appear and move it forward to the next generations. At least, I hope so.
The album ends with the song ‘We’re Still Here’, another cadenced Industrial Metal track which reminded me of the song ‘Lay Lady Lay’. There is something different in the ambience and, to close Ministry’s saga, Al has invited Paul Barker. The song ends in an epic mood. This song is definitely something that Al took out from all his heart, desperate phobia, and love for the beloved fans of Ministry’s strange kind of cathartic exorcism to set people free to find out who we are (just for the record, Al isn’t that far from what the ancient and well-known philosopher Socrates from Athens who taught people: to know themselves as a tool to reach freedom – in good Latin, ‘Nosce Te Ipsum’).
Well, I don’t think I’m able to talk about the production and engineering spent on “We Hate to Go” – Al is a genius, and it seems that he can’t get enough of being a crazy genius drowned in his home studio. That is exactly the lesson that he left for the next generation: be creative, be intense, and be honest about how you feel, and scream it to the whole world to look at you with fear and respect.
In synthesis, it felt to me like Al wouldn’t let the music industry nor his health dictate that it was time to stop. Instead, honouring Ministry’s 40-plus-year journey, it sounds like Jourgensen is deliberately scripting his own requiem on “We Hate to Go”.
But, hey, I advise you not to take the album as nostalgia and sadness for the end of Ministry’s studio albums. This album is all about having fun and not taking life too seriously. We can’t trace back time – so, enjoy your life and do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. Love is the law, love under will.
“We Hate to Go” feels like a defiant, sorrow-tinged epitaph: an iconic noise machine signing off on its own terms. Yeah, Uncle Al has always known it all, from the end, back to the beginning.
TRACKLISTING:
01. Crickets
02. Voices of Hate
03. Clown Car
04. We Hate
05. Delete
06. Grifter
07. The White Man Lied*
08. Singularity
09. Burned Out
10. We’re Still Here (ft. Paul Barker)
LINE-UP:
Al Jourgensen — Lead vocals, guitars
John Bechdel — Keyboards, synthesizers
Cesar Soto — Guitar, backing vocals
Paul D’Amour — Bass
Monte Pittman — Guitar
Pepe Clarke Magaña — Drums
Paul Barker – bass (special guest)
LINKS:
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