Laibach

Those wacky Slovenians are at it again. Where can one possibly start with this bunch? You can’t listen to them without doing yourself the favour of knowing a bit about who they are. Don’t think of Laibach as just a band, but instead as an artist collective, with music being only one form of media they manipulate. Between staged exhibits and concerts/performance art that plays out more like pseudo fascist rallies, their background is of dubious nature, but not intent. Musically, WAT is filled with the electronic beats and sparse melodies, the eerie militaristic choir backgrounds and horn fanfares, and the throaty, growly German vocals that characterise their brand of industrial. Though the German lyrics sound even more egregious, the songs "sung” in English couldn’t be more ironic. Political commentary is not only what Laibach does best, it’s what their career is, and WAT (We Are Time) illustrates this raison d’etre perfectly. They once again force you to consider political agendas and policies via the most satirical use of totalitarian posturing you could hope to encounter — and all within the dance floor-friendly format of industrial-dance music! As bleak as the disc is, you can’t help but have a chuckle at how well they pull it all off. Their genius has never been so apparent.