They also close the recent Amierkkant album with a new take on their “Ricky’s Hand” cover.
Not to be “that guy”, but I’m sure you’re thinking of the album “HOPIUMFORTHEMASSES”?
(Unless it’s a veiled critiscizm to say the last albums sound very similar, heh)
Haha! I’ve only listened to each of those once so totally got them mixed up!
Looks like they have more in stock now (bandcamp)!
Very cool. Thanks for posting this!
Haha, that’s great! Nice to see another era revisited. A fair bit of playback though
What a great encore!
To me the last three tracks on Squirrely Years sound like the original vocals, but I’m not positive. “All Day” is definitely a new vocal – though I’m never sure whether to classify that as Twitch or Twelve-Inch Singles.
I was really surprised with how good this album turned out, especially the Twitch tracks. I kind of wish he’d do a remake of at least “Where You At Now” too. Like someone else said, it seems like he took an earnest stab at this rather than just slathering on metal arrangements and super-distorted vocals. His production/arrangement decisions modernized all three tracks and improved them without stepping all over the original sound. E.g. I’ve always hated how the synths in “Over the Shoulder” dropped out in the second part of the chorus – it felt like an oversight rather than an intentional production decision. But he actually “resolved” that in this remake.
This just feels like a fan service.
This is about 20 years too late. In order for this to have worked creatively Jourgensen should’ve gotten over his metal dude bro persona and embraced his earlier works a hell of a lot sooner. Even an early 00s Al could’ve done this justice.
These updated tunes (and i use that term loosely because even the 80’s were a hundred times more creative than todays producers) with a way past his prime Jourgensen just dont do anything for me.
He lacks that energy and fierceness he used to bring that showed up even on his pop tunes.
I have mixed emotions. It’s a fun record, and it shines a light on a period of Ministry that had long been ignored (except here). However, he crapped on With Sympathy for decades, largely forgot about Twitch, and pushed a narrative that he had nothing to do with the WS material, which is a disservice to the former band members. I’m glad something awakened him to the fact that the early material is/was good, and that fans might pay to see/hear it again.
Ya it’s cool that he came around to his synth days even patched things up with Barker and friends. Maybe he can write another book focusing on this era or start a podcast (to this day im stunned no one has a legitimate podcast covering the wax trax years.)
But this stuff is never going to replace the original recordings for me.
To be fair admittedly Al is late to a lot of things. And he does a lot of things because and when he feels like it
That just sounds incredibly vague. And he already explained why he did this. He realized this era of Ministry was still deeply popular and realized he made a mistake by dismissing it for so long.
Well, after one spin this was kind of disappointing, to be honest. All songs sound better in their original versions in my ears, thus so far this one sounds more like a kind-of-pointless covers record. The arrangements that made the originals so memorable and catchy all seem a little drowned out, or downright ignored in favor of a more basic, metallic sound. “Effigy” is probably the best example of this after the first listen. Sorry Al
I enjoyed the new version but yeah the original songs are way more iconic. The only one I outright disliked so heavily was Over the shoulder. It doesn’t even come close to the original and it adds useless stuff for no reason and that adds nothing
I was hoping they might update “Primental” and keep it as an instrumental.
Not my jam. However, that being said, Squirrely isn’t awful and it does seem like Al actually put some care into this which is a bit shocking itself.
And that’s a wrap! A tour 40 years in the making.
It seemed like the crowds for the Squirrely Years Tour were just as large if not larger than recent Ministry tours. The venues looked packed.
He’ll use that to come back out of retirement again