MINISTRY Unleashes New Single “We Hate” Ahead Of Final Album Hate To Go (Take Out Or Delivery)
Industrial metal pioneers Ministry have released their new single “We Hate,” the second track to emerge from what is being billed as the band’s final studio album, Hate To Go (Take Out Or Delivery).
After more than four decades of industrial noise, political fury, controversy, experimentation and enough sonic destruction to make a busted factory sound like a recording studio, Ministry is preparing to call it a day.
The Al Jourgensen-led outfit has unleashed “We Hate,” the latest single from Hate To Go (Take Out Or Delivery), which is scheduled for release October 30, 2026 through Cleopatra Records.
And if the title wasn’t already a pretty big clue, Jourgensen apparently isn’t planning to go quietly.
The new track takes aim squarely at the current political climate, with Ministry once again using its music as a weapon against what Jourgensen sees as the increasingly absurd state of American society. The accompanying video, directed by Joshua Bradford, continues that confrontational approach.
The song follows “Burned Out,” which was released in July and served as the first preview of the forthcoming record.
Hate To Go (Take Out Or Delivery) will feature 10 tracks:
Crickets
Voices of Hate
Clown Car
We Hate
Delete
Grifter
The White Man Lied
Singularity
Burned Out
We’re Still Here (feat. Paul Barker)
One of the most significant moments on the album comes with its closing track, “We’re Still Here,” which features the return of longtime Ministry bassist and collaborator Paul Barker. Barker’s involvement gives the album an especially interesting connection to Ministry’s past as Jourgensen prepares to close the book on the band’s studio career.
The current Ministry lineup contributing to the record includes guitarists Monte Pittman and Cesar Soto, bassist Paul D’Amour, keyboardist John Bechdel and drummer Pepe Clarke Magaña, alongside Jourgensen.
45 Years Of Ministry
Founded in Chicago in 1981, Ministry began life with a considerably different sound from the industrial-metal juggernaut that would eventually emerge.
The band’s early material leaned heavily into synth-pop and the emerging electronic sounds of the era, culminating in the 1983 debut With Sympathy. Jourgensen soon began pushing Ministry into considerably darker and heavier territory, resulting in landmark releases including Twitch (1986), The Land of Rape and Honey (1988) and The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste (1989).
Then came 1992’s Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs, which propelled Ministry to its biggest level of mainstream recognition and earned the band its first Grammy nomination.
Over the decades, Ministry became one of the defining forces behind industrial metal, influencing countless bands while maintaining Jourgensen’s reputation for saying exactly what he thinks, whether anyone asked him to or not.
The band has released 17 studio albums, eight live releases and numerous side projects, while touring across five continents. Jourgensen has also survived enough personal and professional chaos to fill several bands’ worth of memoirs, documentaries and rock ‘n’ roll cautionary tales.
Ministry went on an indefinite hiatus in 2013 before returning in 2018 with AmeriKKKant. That record continued the band’s long tradition of political commentary, something that remained central to subsequent releases including 2021’s Moral Hygiene and 2024’s HOPIUMFORTHEMASSES.
Last year’s The Squirrely Years Revisited saw Jourgensen revisit and rework material from Ministry’s early synth-pop period.
Now, with Hate To Go (Take Out Or Delivery), Jourgensen appears ready to put a final stamp on the Ministry legacy.
One Last Trip Around The World
Ministry will support the album with an international farewell tour, giving fans one more opportunity to experience the band’s blend of industrial metal, electronic chaos and politically charged aggression in the live setting.
The European portion of the farewell campaign is currently scheduled to kick off April 2, 2027, in Utrecht, Netherlands, and will continue through May 1 in Helsinki, Finland.
The “Goodbye Europe 2027” run includes 21 shows and will feature Die Krupps as special guests.
The scheduled dates are:
April 2 – Utrecht, Netherlands – Ronda
April 3 – Saarbrücken, Germany – Garage
April 4 – Brussels, Belgium – Ancienne Belgique
April 6 – Manchester, UK – O2 Victoria Warehouse
April 7 – Dublin, Ireland – 3Olympia
April 9 – Nottingham, UK – Rock City
April 10 – London, UK – Troxy
April 12 – Paris, France – Bataclan
April 14 – Madrid, Spain – La Riviera
April 15 – Barcelona, Spain – Paral-lel
April 17 – Lausanne, Switzerland – Docks
April 18 – Munich, Germany – Tonhalle
April 19 – Vienna, Austria – Gasometer
April 21 – Prague, Czech Republic – Forum Karlín
April 22 – Warsaw, Poland – Progresja
April 24 – Berlin, Germany – Columbiahalle
April 25 – Hamburg, Germany – Grosse Freiheit 36
April 26 – Copenhagen, Denmark – Amager Bio
April 27 – Oslo, Norway – Rockefeller
April 29 – Stockholm, Sweden – Fållan
May 1 – Helsinki, Finland – House of Culture
Special meet-and-greet packages with Jourgensen will also be available for the tour, including a photo opportunity, souvenir laminate, silk-screen poster and commemorative tour coin.
Whether Hate To Go (Take Out Or Delivery) ultimately proves to be Ministry’s final album remains something only time will tell. Rock ‘n’ roll has never exactly been famous for keeping retirement plans simple.
But if this really is the end of Ministry’s studio journey, Jourgensen certainly seems intent on leaving the building the same way he spent the last 45 years: loud, abrasive, unapologetic and pissed off.
Hate To Go (Take Out Or Delivery) arrives October 30, 2026 via Cleopatra Records and will be released on vinyl, CD, cassette and digital formats.
Watch the video for “We Hate” below.
In 2024 Prog explored Cocteau Twins’ third album, 1984’s Treasure, and presented solid evidence that Elizabeth Fraser’s approach to vocals and her colleague’s soundscape creations bore all the hallmarks of progressive music.
Back in the mid-80s when levity and piss-taking were an integral part of the music press, British weekly music mag NME ran a humourous column called Bismillah in its jokey Thrills pages.
It was dedicated to highlighting excruciatingly bad lyrics – who can forget The Cult’s ‘Sittin’ on a mountain, looking at the sun/Plastic fantastic lobster telephone’ from Aphrodisiac Jacket, among many other dubious pearls?
Bismillah probably sealed the image of Cocteau Twins singing in gibberish when it ran the lyrics of Ivo, the opening song of Treasure, as: ‘Ping pong page scrub pandor pompadour/Henry he’s sweet he saved me.’ (They are, in actual fact, ‘Peep hole, peach blow, Pandora, pompadour/Pale leaf, pink sweet, Persephone.’)
Of course, Cocteau Twins, and more specifically, singer Elizabeth Fraser, were much smarter than the jokes suggested.
Partly masking her own shyness, her lyrical obfuscation worked better when looked at as a form of instrumentation that blended with the ethereal contributions of guitarist and co-founder Robin Guthrie, plus newly-joined bassist Simon Raymonde – who would later find even greater success as the founder of the Bella Union record label.
Released in1984, Treasure is the point where musical vision and ambitions coalesced to create a world that was wholly their own. Previous LPs Garlands (1982) and Head Over Heels (1983), along with a steady series of EPs, had displayed their evolving maturity.
The catalogue had won them the support of John Peel’s listeners and the more cerebral wing of what was later to be defined as ‘goth.’
Treasure found the trio unshackling the ties of inspiration to set sail into an ocean of creativity that defied the narrow strictures of easy categorisation. Restraint was something that other bands did.
In the studio they luxuriated in the soundscapes of reverb and the widescreen effects of delay pedals and echoes. Embracing the emerging digital technology, their walls and sheets of sound would shine the light for the legions of bands for years to come.
It would be called shoegaze in the UK; the Americans would dub it dream pop – while really, with little precedent, Cocteau Twins were a progressive band to their very core.
Witness the chimes of Lorelei that evoke the frosts of winter; or the sang-froid that drives the chilly yet charming Aloysius. And while the musical backdrop from Guthrie and Raymonde pushes forward, Fraser’s vocal whoops and undulations, seemingly couched in childlike splendour, elevate Cocteau Twins to the height of true originals.
The Victorian-sounding names for song titles (see Beatrix and Cicely) left them open to detractors. But like all true pioneers, their hats were always going to be shot through with arrows.