MINISTRY frontman Al Jourgensen said the band’s 2012 album Relapse was going to be the band's final, but in December, Ministry wrote and recorded riffs for 18 songs. “This was one of the most creative Ministry tracking sessions ever. The band was on fire,” Jourgensen tells Jon Wiederhorn from Noisey.

But tragedy struck Ministry three days after leaving their sessions in El Paso. In the early hours of December 23, guitarist Mike Scaccia suffered heart failure onstage while performing with his other band, RIGOR MORTIS, and was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.

“Mikey was my best friend in the world and there’s no Ministry without him,” Jourgensen continues. “But I know the music we recorded together during the last weeks of his life had to be released to honor him. So after his funeral, I locked myself in my studio and turned the songs we had recorded into the best and last Ministry record anyone will ever here. I can’t do it without Mikey and I don’t want to. So yes, this will be Ministry’s last album.”

Jourgensen worked on From Beer To Eternity through March at 13th Planet Records in his El Paso, Texas compound with co-producer Sammy D’Ambruoso, and engineer/keyboard programmer Aaron Havill. In addition to producing and mixing, Jourgensen wrote all the lyrics.

From Beer to Eternity is scheduled for release in September, but there will be no tour. Instead, Jourgensen will promote the album in the press along with his authorized biography, Ministry: The Lost Gospels According to Al Jourgensen, which comes out on DaCapo Books in August.

Read the entire article at Noisey.

From Beer to Eternity tracklist:

'Hail To His Majesty'

'Punch In The Face'

'PermaWar'

'Perfect Storm'

'Fairly Unbalanced'

'The Horror'

'Side FX include Mikey's Middle Finger (T.V.4)'

'Lesson Unlearned'

'Thanx But No Thanx'

'Change Of Luck'

'Enjoy The Silence'

Check out a Making Of From Beer to Eternity video below: