Prices are continuing to soar for everything in this current climate, from food to shipping to tour buses this has meant bands have either had to rethink their touring obligations or just cancel entire legs of their tours altogether. It has affected other major bands such as Anthrax as well as many other acts. The band shared news of the cancellation via a statement on their social media which read “Due to previously unforeseen circumstances, including the recent cancelation of a festival, we are forced to cancel our fall Europe tour. Hope to see you all next summer. We’re sorry, and we’re here to answer any questions you guys have.” You can view the post in full below.

https://t.co/nds1dasExF#MinistryBand #WeAreMinistry #Ministry pic.twitter.com/KJlbi53ANj

— Ministry (@WeAreMinistry) October 3, 2022

News about the tour cancellation first came from organizers of the Damnation Festival in a Facebook post on the event’s official page, organizers said they had just received word that things were not going to go as planned. A post on the Facebook page for Damnation Festival stated:

“We’ve just been told, literally minutes ago by e-mail, that Ministry have cancelled their entire European tour due to a festival they were due to play on that run being cancelled without any warning. This is obviously a huge blow to Damnation, albeit not one that will have any impact on it taking place in Manchester in November. We haven’t really had a chance to digest the news, or even start to consider a replacement as yet, but we didn’t want our fans to find out via third parties, or worse, have Ministry fans buying tickets tonight when we know they won’t be playing.”

Hopefully this isn’t a continuing trend for much longer as fuel prices surely cant keep rising and Covid slowly becomes a distant memory otherwise it will be a long wait till we see some international bands arrive on our shores as even some bigger acts have struggled so it may be next to impossible for some of the smaller bands.

The tour’s namesake comes from the group’s fifteenth studio album Moral Hygiene, which was originally released on October 1^st of last year. The album was warmly received by critics and fans alike, with Sonic Perspectives praising both the sonic power of the album and its themes, saying: Not many bands know how to make a statement quite like Ministry, who have long brandished tenets of antifascism, staunch distaste of political corruption, and strong belief in equal rights…With blistering and aggressive riffage, “Moral Hygiene” tears through the wreckage and devastation of a broken world to make a statement while affirming Ministry’s legacy in industrial metal.”

Since their inception in the early 1980s, Ministry have put out a steady stream of musical releases, commencing with their debut full length With Sympathy in 1983. For anyone who know Ministry for their blistering riffs and monstrous vocals, it might come as quite the surprise that the band’s debut was actually a synthpop album, sharing more in common with bands such as Depeche Mode or New Order than the heavy industrial metal sound that the group would later hone. With Sympathy even featured singer Al Jourgensen singing in a somewhat convincing British accent, which he later stated was a homage to bands he loved at the time.

The group ventured into heavier territory with their 1986 sophomore album Twitch, which once again fit snugly into the “new wave” category, but was notably harsher and more intense. This record seems like a natural bridge to the territory that Ministry would inhabit with their next album, 1988’s The Land of Rape and Honey, which saw the band incorporating heavy metal style electric guitars into their sound. Their third album The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste put even more emphasis on the use of guitars, making for a record filled to the brim with urgent, thrashy songs and nightmarish soundscapes.

Ministry’s upcoming UK tour dates can be viewed down below, and full tour information can be found at this link.

02/11/2022- O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire- London
03/11- SWG3 TV Studio- Manchester
04/11- National Stadium- Dublin
05/11- Damnation Festival- Manchester

Having long been an event for those with more extreme palettes, Damnation Festival 2022 features a whole host of exciting heavy artists. First and foremost, headline sets will be performed by legendary industrial metal outfit Ministry, and the highly influential hardcore punk/metalcore titans Converge. In addition to this, the long-standing and well-revered American grindcore band Pig Destroyer will be playing at the festival, as well as death metal/grindcore group Full Of Hell, a band well known for encompassing almost all aspects of extreme music in their catalogue of work, including hardcore punk, powerviolence, death metal, sludge metal and noise rock. The band hails from Maryland, USA, and recently released their eighth full-length studio album Garden of Burning Apparitions, which sees the ambitious group taking their established sound in a more noise-rock driven direction. Check out the album here.

For those who gravitate towards the slower, more droning side of heavy music; the festival has you covered with a selection of some of the best doom/sludge metal bands out there, including Arkansas-based riff-masters Pallbearer-who will also be playing at ArcTanGent festival next year-as well as a collaborative set between Bell Witch and dark folk artist Aerial Ruin, who recorded an album together in 2020, entitled Stygian Bough Volume I.

Also on the bill are Canadian deathcore outfit Despised Icon, progressive/psychedelic rock band Elder, German thrash group Destruction, and renowned American black metallers Wolves In The Throne Room.

The festival is not all pummelling riffs and demonic growling however, as Australian post-rock band We Lost The Sea were recently added to the roster, joking on Twitter: “In fact, looks like we’re the only band that uses a clean tone”.

The announcement of the event comes mere weeks after Damnation Festival 2021 occurred, meaning that more acts will likely be announced in the coming months.

To re-iterate, Damnation Festival will take place at Bec Arena in Manchester on the 5^th of November 2022. More information about the festival can be found here, including the line-up, tickets, official Damnation Festival merchandise, and a link to the festival’s very own podcast, which features special guests such as band members and festival organisers. According to a tweet from Damnation Festival themselves, 2,000 tickets have presently been sold.