Before Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails, Chicago's Ministry pioneered industrial music and outrage. Journalists visiting the studio of Al Jourgensen and Paul Barker would flee with tales of being offered heroin, and the band's live shows - often involving animals and strippers - were discussed in the Commons.
These days, Ministry's once-experimental sound (which Jourgensen delightedly described as "dance music for psychopaths") is a central component of nu-metal. And Jourgensen was jolted into giving up drugs after almost losing his arm to a spider's bite. But he is not ready to calm down yet, nor give up his mission.
Clad in leather, with a scarf covering his raven hair, Jourgensen looks like a demented hell's angel as he stands behind a contraption that looks like a cross between motorcycle handlebars and a pair of snakes. He sips from a bottle and his guttural vocals produce a stream of saliva, some of which is captured by his tiny beard, the rest flying off in the direction of the band members. Manson is almost a cartoon in comparison.
The infected arm proves a handy instrument for directing his audience. Jourgensen is like a classical conductor, and the musicians are drilled with a discipline associated with religious sects. Shards of guitar and pummelling drums produce a hypnotic barrage, taking in older classics, the recent Animositisomina album and even Jourgensen's 1989 cover of Black Sabbath's Supernaut. When a saxophone player adds delicious swathes of melody to some of the songs, it is like hearing a radio playing in a car factory.
Unusually, Jourgensen's notorious sense of humour doesn't make much of an appearance here, although there's a mischievous shot of Bing Crosby mingled with slides of larvae, skulls and people vomiting. Jourgensen recently announced that he was reforming Ministry after a long absence because he was "pissed off again". The source of his ire is apparent as a torrent of anger combines with Bush speeches and slide shows sarcastically proclaiming: "War is good business." It is an obvious point, but blisteringly put. After a few more spits, grins and grumbles, Jourgensen and henchmen leave in triumph, having presumably put the fear of God into Manson, Bush, tinnitus sufferers and the poor souls who have to clean the stage.
