Ministry’s ‘Moral Hygiene’ turns 5 on 1 October
Ministry’s 15th album “Moral Hygiene” turns 5 on 1 October. The Nuclear Blast record was produced by Al Jourgensen and features Jello Biafra.
Cover art: Ministry, "Moral Hygiene" (Nuclear Blast, 2021)
Ministry‘s “Moral Hygiene” turns 5 on 1 October. The industrial metal band released its fifteenth studio album through Nuclear Blast on 1 October 2021, produced by Al Jourgensen. The record runs ten tracks and 47 minutes, and it marked the first Ministry album since 2012’s “Relapse” to include a cover song.
“Moral Hygiene” was recorded over roughly three years following 2018’s “AmeriKKKant” and is the first Ministry album to feature bassist Paul D’Amour, formerly of Tool, who joined the band in 2019. It is also the first record since 2006’s “Rio Grande Blood” without guitarist Sin Quirin, who left Ministry in March 2021. The album’s cover of Iggy Pop and James Williamson’s “Search and Destroy” was released as a single on 20 August 2021, alongside “Alert Level” (24 April 2020) and “Good Trouble” (8 July 2021), the latter accompanied by a “Unity Mix” the band put out to honor civil rights leader John Lewis.
Guest musicians on “Moral Hygiene” include guitarist Billy Morrison, former Megadeth bassist David Ellefson, former N.W.A member Arabian Prince, and Jello Biafra, Jourgensen’s former bandmate in Lard, who takes lead vocals on “Sabotage Is Sex.” The album was engineered by Michael Rozon and mastered by Dave Donnelly. It was released on CD, vinyl, cassette and digital formats via Nuclear Blast.
About Ministry
Ministry formed in Chicago in 1981 as the synthpop project of Al Jourgensen. The band’s 1983 debut, “With Sympathy,” was released through Arista Records and leaned toward the synth-driven sound of the era, a direction Jourgensen later disowned as label-imposed. Ministry’s sound shifted toward the aggressive, guitar-driven industrial style that would define the band starting with 1986’s “Twitch,” produced with Adrian Sherwood, and continuing through 1988’s “The Land of Rape and Honey” and 1989’s “The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste,” both released on Sire Records.
The band’s commercial breakthrough came with 1992’s “Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs,” which went platinum in the United States and included the single “Jesus Built My Hotrod” featuring Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers. Ministry continued through the 1990s with “Filth Pig” (1996) and “Dark Side of the Spoon” (1999), then released “Animositisomina” (2003), the final album to feature longtime bassist Paul Barker, before Jourgensen turned to a trilogy of albums aimed at the George W. Bush administration: “Houses of the Molé” (2004), “Rio Grande Blood” (2006) and “The Last Sucker” (2007). Jourgensen announced Ministry’s retirement after “The Last Sucker,” then reactivated the band with 2012’s “Relapse,” recorded after he survived a near-fatal ruptured ulcer. Ministry has released albums steadily since, including “From Beer to Eternity” (2013), featuring posthumous contributions from guitarist Mike Scaccia, “AmeriKKKant” (2018), “Moral Hygiene” (2021) and “Hopiumforthemasses” (2024), each addressing the political landscape of its release year. Jourgensen remains the band’s sole constant member, working alongside a rotating cast of musicians including longtime guitarist Cesar Soto and, since 2019, bassist Paul D’Amour. “Moral Hygiene” extended that run five years ago this October, arriving as Ministry’s fifteenth studio album.
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