Ministry - Hate To Go - Take Out Or Delivery (2026) Hi-Res

Al Jourgensen has now announced the end of Ministry three times, so it's fair to approach Hate To Go (Take Out Or Delivery), the band's 17th studio album, with a raised eyebrow. The first "final" album was 2007's The Last Sucker; the second was 2013's From Beer to Eternity, billed as the finale after guitarist Mike Scaccia's death (Scaccia appears on it posthumously), and both times the band was back within a few years. This time there's a farewell tour booked for 2027, and Jourgensen sounds, for once, like he means it.

Ministry's story has never been calm, and this album's closing track reflects that: Paul Barker, Jourgensen's partner through the early-'90s peak, returns for "We're Still Here," his first Ministry studio appearance since 2003's Animositisomina. The current lineup (guitarists Monte Pittman and Cesar Soto, bassist Paul D'Amour, sampler and synth player John Bechdel, and drummer Pepe Clarke Magaña) handles the rest. The band's sound has long since moved from its synth-pop beginnings and industrial pioneering to a harder, metal-leaning attack, and AmeriKKKant (2018), Moral Hygiene (2021), and Hopiumforthemasses (2024) largely kept that final mode running on a loop, which makes Hate To Go's slight return to older territory the more striking.

Both of the first two tracks—"Crickets" and "Voices of Hate"—sound like outtakes from the Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste era. While the chunky guitar riffs, relentless drumming, and vocal samples have always been part of the Ministry mix, there was a particular sonic landscape on Mind (and, to a lesser degree, its predecessor and follow-up albums) that was both expansive and oppressive. Like watching an army of horseback cyborgs crash into battle, that era of Ministry was both efficiently industrial and demonically unhinged, and these two tracks (and, truly, much of Hate To Go) capture that essence wonderfully.

"Crickets" samples Barack Obama, but even though we know where Uncle Al stands politically, one can be sure that his anti-authoritarian streak is undimmed. Similarly intact are his guileless use of on-the-nose lyrics ("We Hate"), his sense of humor ("Clown Car"), and his late-era affinity for swaggering grooves ("The White Man Lied"). The titles alone ("Grifter," "Delete," "Voices of Hate") read like a checklist of his usual targets, and lead single "Burned Out" stuffs most of the toolbox into six minutes, with '80s-esque synths bubbling under metal riffs while samples of news headlines about wars and political scandals cut through the mix.