Al Jourgensen and Ministry Grind Out the Shock-Rock

At a time when nothing shocks us anymore and the word “extreme” has practically become a brand name, a performance by Ministry can still be an unsettling experience. Tapping into the place where industrial music’s sequencer-driven tumult meets metal’s guitar grind and hard-core’s melodic rigor, leader Al Jourgensen has perfected an approach to shock-rock that never goes out of style. At the Hollywood Palladium on Tuesday, Jourgensen and Ministry hammered their way through their material like diligent construction workers, while the crowd relentlessly surged and moshed.

Austerity is the key to Ministry’s impact. At the Palladium, the septet crafted sonic behemoths from industrial music’s raw materials: One or two guitar chords played relentlessly, a processional drum pattern, a few discreetly placed samples, and Jourgensen’s shrieking bark, all played at cage-rattling volume. The end result was strangely hypnotic--a roiling storm of sound, with an occasional odd-metered outburst or power-chord mushroom cloud thrown in for good measure.

Show openers L7 were as uncompromising as Ministry, if not quite as assaultive. The L.A.-based trio, which has bounced from indies to major labels and then back again, stamps out noisy punk-metal that finds its roots in the Stooges’ garage-glam and Exene Cervenka’s gender politics. Drawing on older material and tracks from its strong new release, “Slap-Happy,” the band fought through a muddy sound mix with pugnacious brio.