16-02-2025
Ministry will celebrate its early records at Palace Theatre
Ministry, an elder statesman of industrial rock, will celebrate its earliest work with a new tour.
The Chicago-born band of Al Jourgensen will hit the Palace Theatre in St. Paul on May 20, promising to play songs from their first two studio albums, With Sympathy and Twitch.
The albums fall closer to synth-pop than the industrial metal that came to define the band. The three albums that followed these debut records became some of the genre's most revered releases. Two of those next three surface in Consequence of Sound's 50 greatest industrial albums of all time, including Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs sitting in the top spot.
The tour, which starts on April 29, will include contemporaries in the opening slots. In St. Paul, My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult will open along with Die Krupps. (Nitzer Ebb will open on other dates during the tour.)
As part of the celebration and embrace of its early work, Ministry unveiled a new record that features 12 re-recorded tracks from that early era. 'Since I hated my early stuff for decades, I decided to take ownership of it and do it right,' Jourgensen said in a statement.
The album, The Squirrely Years Revisited, will be released on March 28.
That, however, isn't the group's previously announced final album, which will have Jourgensen and Paul Barker reuniting in the studio. The tour announcement says that the band now plans to release its final record in 2026.
Blabbermouth and Spotify presales will take place on Feb. 13 at 10 a.m. Tickets go on sale to the public the following day at the same time.
Elsewhere in the Midwest, Ministry will bring the tour to Chicago (May 9) and Detroit (May 10).
