(MusicPortal.com) (09/07/05)

By Michael Bennett

NEW YORK, NY, USA - Industrial Rock and Metal groundbreakers MINISTRY will release an album celebrating the 25th anniversary of the band on September 27th via Sanctuary Records.

Entitled "Rantology," the new collection is Ministry mastermind Al Jourgensen's personal interpretation and reflection upon the music his iconic band has created over the years.

Featuring 14 classic tracks hand-picked, produced and remixed by Jourgensen, over half of the collection has been updated, reworked, and reanimated by Jourgensen.

In addition, "Rantology" features three live tracks along with a new never-heard-before song titled 'The Great Satan,' giving listeners a sneak preview of Ministry's upcoming studio album, due out in April of 2006.

From tape loops and sampling to the punishing static of relentless guitars, Ministry forever changed aggressive music, and the influence of Al Jourgensen still resonates loudly to this day.

Forming Ministry in Chicago in 1980, Jourgensen unwittingly kicked off what would become a pivotal turning point in music.

In defiance of a music scene around him consisting of light-hearted Dance, New Wave and Punk, Ministry first dabbled in a combination of the three, but soon took a sharp left turn and never looked back.

Ministry delved headfirst into a sound that was eruptive, abrasive, darker and heavier than anything before it.

The new sound combined gritty in-your-face lyrics with aggressive noise, often using rare audio samples, fierce drumbeats, a wall of heavy guitars and unconventional items as instruments.

The new musical genre was coined "Industrial," with Jourgensen at the helm.

In the 25 years since Ministry's formation, Al Jourgensen has seen the ups and downs of success as a musician and battled personal demons, all while shaping an entire generation of modern music.

His lyrics are colored with hope and despair, angst and rebellion; his music is the fortification against complacency.

"Rantology" is the examination and celebration of that resolve.

Al Jourgensen's evolution as a musician - and an individual - culminated in the critically-acclaimed 2004 release of "Houses Of The Mole," which served as a vehicle to re-energize the Ministry sound and decry the political imbroglio of the administration governing the United States.

That album unleashed a political diatribe set atop a raging wave of music to aurally assail the figurehead and the chicanery of the Bush administration, which outraged Jourgensen to no end.

"Old Bush, new Bush," he laughs.

A year later, Jourgensen has harnessed his ire once again, revamping and reinterpreting the music of Ministry with a compilation of songs from his archives and inadvertently reminding us just how salient his music remains.

With the addition of 'The Great Satan,' "Rantology" stands as a monument to the powerful legacy of one of the most influential artists working today.

The collection is a virtual Ministry "mash-up," mixing vintage material with new elements that Jourgensen has been working with of late: fast beats and orchestral sounds mixed together.

But Jourgensen had no designs on romanticizing his past on the album.

"Doing these sessions was excruciating for me. I really hate to stop and look back. I haven't really listened to any of my old records in a long time - years in some cases."

"I'm always looking forward to the next thing. All those little bits you notice come haunting back - things you might want to change. As I'm getting older it's somewhat satisfying in a historical perspective."

"When I'm playing a show, to see all the different people who have come to like Ministry - rock fans, metal fans, industrial fans, and our little army of goths - but there are also parents, grandparents and kids - I feel like I'm Wayne Newton or something."

"People grow. You start out trying to find your place in the world and trying to find out what you're good at, and as a human being, you evolve."

For Al Jourgensen, evolution is updating the Ministry sound and forcing change upon himself while others stagnate.

"Sanctuary asked me to put out a collection and we already have a greatest hits CD out there on Warner Brothers, and I just figured that a second one would be a rip-off for the kids. Why rehash that stuff?"

"I decided that if we're going to do this, I should at least go in there and update some of the songs so it isn't just another compilation. The 'Rantology' collection is stuff I hand-picked so that it could be something worth having."

Of particular interest is the opening track, 'No W Redux.'

On it, Jourgensen rewrote the operatic opening to sensational effect, utilizing the services of an opera singer who happened to be present during the studio session for "Rantology."

"That was a trip, man. Martha Cooper was just wandering around the studio because her son was recording in this Blues band at the same complex (Sonic Ranch) and I asked her what she was doing. She mentioned that she's an opera singer and I immediately said, 'Come with me! I just happen to be working on something.'"

"So it was really a good chance meeting. It's incredible what opera singers can do with the human voice as an instrument." "Rantology" is fueled with a combination of beauty and passion and angst.

Jourgensen also describes the direction of a song like 'The Great Satan' as a preview of things to come.

"It's where the upcoming record is going (due in early 2006). Fast and furious. So far the songs that we have for it are three-thousand miles an hour. "And it will be just as political as the last one."

And so Ministry continues its fight against apathy with their music.

"We're calling people out to do something. On our last tour, we put our money where our mouth is, and I'd go out after sound-check and register voters, with the help of Punk Voter (punkvoter.com), Music For America, and our Ministry fans who volunteered via our website."

"It was a lot of logistical coordination but people need to go out and do something, and that hasn't changed."

On "Rantology," songs like 'No W Redux' and 'Wrong' from "Houses Of The Mole" have been tweaked to include new samples and remain as powerful as the day they were released, outlining the frustrations the artist feels living under the Bush Administration.

Jourgensen remixed these along with other tracks, such as 'Stigmata' and 'Jesus Built My Hot Rod,' to bring out their power and make them more accessible to new listeners.

Other songs like 'Waiting' and 'Animosity' are just good songs which he chose not to alter in any way because he liked them as they are. These tracks manage to represent something from pretty much every Ministry release which still illuminates.

"I'm also proud of 'Bloodlines' and it came together really quickly," Jourgensen says.

"Activision approached us about doing it for the video game 'Vampires: The Bloodlines,' and we recorded the whole thing from top to bottom in about two and a half days."

"The lyrics came very easily. It was a really easy song to do. I had seen a preview of the video game, and I'm not much of a gamer, but that's because I'm pretty old-school about some things."

And they were showing me all these graphics and what they can do now is amazing. It just blew me away and motivated me to write, I guess."

Jourgensen decided to include several live tracks from "Sphinctour" for simple reasons, such as he liked the ending on 'The Fall,' which for him is a summation of a lot of different things.

"It's dark and slow and brings everything to a nice close."

For Al Jourgensen, Ministry is the pulpit from which he speaks. His music is radical, his method is sound. He advocates and craves change and "Rantology" serves as an example of that.

Al Jourgensen continues to thrive with his music. And what makes that especially exciting is that, after all these years, Ministry still kicks ass.

Rantology" Track Listing:

1. No W Redux
2. The Great Satan
3. Wrong (Update Mix)
4. NWO (Update Mix)
5. Stigmata (Update Mix)
6. Waiting (Warp City Alt Mix)
7. Jesus Built My Hot Rod (Update Mix)
8. Bad Blood (Alternate Mix)
9. Animosity (Unsung Alternate Mix)
10. Bloodlines
11. Psalm 69 (Live In Paris)
12. Thieves (Live In Seattle)
13. The Fall (Live In London)

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