Al Jourgensen is taking ownership of Ministry’s early synth pop-influenced recordings and crowning the project with a squirrel penis.
The Squirrely Years Revisted collects several early Ministry tracks drawn primarily from the Arista era album With Sympathy, Sire era Twitch and several singles, including the cult dance club hit “Everyday (Is Halloween).” The group later achieved fame and unlikely chart success with an industrial and EBM sound featured on their breakthrough LPs The Land of Rape And Honey and 1989’s The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste.
The Squirrely Years Revisited features 9 tracks on vinyl with 3 bonus tracks on CD, scheduled to be released by Cleopatra Records on March 28. Tracklisting below; preorders at ministryband.com.
Ministry will also be touring behind the album starting April 29th with support from Nitzer Ebb (through May 12), My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult (starting May 13) and Die Krupps (all dates).
Ministry largely repudiated the material from the Arista and Sire era, with Jourgensen alleging that Arista and founder Clive Davis meddled with the record at every stage and neutered the band’s sound (which maybe explains the cover art…)
“It’s literally a label-appointed producer, label-appointed engineer, label-appointed background vocalist, label-appointed lyrics, label-appointed looks or management-appointed looks,” Jourgensen explained. “I had to sue to get off this label as soon as that record came out. I was so unhappy.”
Jourgensen said that since he “hated” this stuff for decades, he decided to “take ownership of it and do it right.”
“The guys in the band know I don’t like this record,” Jourgensen told Rolling Stone a year ago ahead of the Cruel World festival in Pasadena, where he played several tracks from With Sympathy and Twitch. “They came up with all these new versions of all the old songs and then sprung them on me one night on the bus while I was on ‘shrooms.
“I actually wound up going, ‘Hey, that’s not bad.'”
⚪️ ministry: the squirrely years revisited tracklisting /
1. Work For Love
2. Here We Go
3. All Day
4. Everyday Is Halloween
5. Revenge
6. I’m Not An Effigy
7. I’m Falling
8. Same Old Madness
9. I’ll Do Anything For You
10. Just Like You [CD ONLY]
11. We Believe [CD ONLY]
12. Over The Shoulder [CD ONLY]
photo: Derick Smith via ministryband.com
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