POP MUSIC REVIEW : Ministry Delivers Hard-Core Gospel

How fitting that industrial rock mastermind Al Jourgensen named his band Ministry.

In an age when so many people find it hard to believe in anything, a congregation of young fans is putting its faith in a group of hard-core rock bands that profess no formal allegiances.

And no group today delivers this abrasive, anti-authority gospel with more imagination or power than Ministry.

In their first Southern California appearance since the triumphant “Lollapalooza” tour last summer, Jourgensen did use a mocking sound-bite of President Bush early in Saturday’s concert at the Universal Amphitheatre: “What we are looking at is good and evil, right and wrong . . . a new world order.”

But you don’t get any sense of partisan politics in the move.

Viewing the world as torn apart by compromise and betrayal, Jourgensen no doubt eagerly awaits Bill Clinton’s first false step as President so that Ministry can add Clinton’s sound-bite to a new song or perhaps even substitute it for Bush’s in “N.W.O.”

If there is nothing worth holding onto in the real world, Ministry--along with Helmet and Sepultura, who were also on Saturday’s bill--looks for truth in the music itself.

Mixing the anger and assault of metal with the irreverence and commentary of punk, the three bands put on tenacious performances that served as a valuable primer of the hard-core hierarchy.

Sepultura, a quartet from Brazil that sings in English, delivered the genre basics in opening the concert: The words served up in a menacing growl that seems to come from deep within the belly of the beast, while the jolting music itself is played at daredevil speed.

As suggested by song titles like “Desperate Cry” and “Meaningless Movements” from the band’s “Arise” album, the group’s themes are bleak and accusatory. In the album’s title tune, Max Cavalera snarls, “I see the world--old, old? / I see the world--dead, dead.”

Helmet, which followed on stage Saturday, adds considerable sophistication and range to the Sepultura basics, thanks to both the irony and wit in the writing and the inspiration of Page Hamilton’s guitar playing.

While virtuosity is often viewed with suspicion in the hard-core world, Hamilton avoids rock star cliches. There are no exaggerated grimaces or behind-the-back gestures as he plays in workmanlike fashion, injecting personality and emotion in the music itself without subtracting from the intensity or speed.

Helmet could be one of the rock bands of the ‘90s, but Ministry is already among the most compelling groups ever.

While the Chicago-based band wasn’t as consistently inspired as on the opening night “Lollapalooza” show at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, there were moments of magic throughout its almost 90-minute set as Jourgensen and company seduced you with both a sonic assault and an accompanying battery of strobe lights and visual images.

The songs are as much about personal addiction (“Just One Fix”) as social corruption, but the heart of the appeal is the trance-like grooves that pound at you with a relentless repetition that must soothe even the most savage beast, temporarily easing the anger and fears.

As in all great art, however, there is a sense of humanity beneath the collision of guitars, keyboards and drums. For all his disillusionment and doubts, Jourgensen has not given up on the comforts of a better world.

So, it’s surprising, yet appropriate, that he bid the audience good night by playing a recording of the pop standard “Mona Lisa” as the crowd filed out of the evening’s rock ‘n’ roll pews.

Though the song, popularized by Nat King Cole, is generally classified as a love song, it is really about obsessive longing . . . the dream of an impossible, idealized love. Ministry’s music isn’t that unsentimental. Beneath the harsh exterior, however, it is filled with the same kind of sensitive longing. It’s that contradiction, in fact, that gives the message of this rock ‘n’ roll Ministry such power and passion.