Nova Akropola

Performer: Laibach
Distributor: MSI Music Distribution

Notes: This is an Enhanced CD, which contains both regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files. As Laibach took on more and more of a direct musical identity outside Slovenia, as opposed to being seen as simply part of the Neue Slowenische Kunst, the group's music gained a similar focus, though admittedly one still aimed specifically at an avant-garde level. Nova Akropola readily captures the band's stone-faced fascination with propaganda, fascism, and the implications of rallying and control, while the music was so perfectly on the money with stentorian rhythms, rough chants, and unnerving textures and samples that it almost beggars description. The title track is a perfect example, string-synths and horns slowly, creepily wafting up through the mix before a distorted, strangled voice starts howling over the slowest death-march beat around. There are signs at many points that the group is starting to explore the perversely accessible styles of later years, but it's still early days yet -- the appropriate comparison wouldn't be industrial/dance so much as the first albums by the Swans. "Die Liebe," though, is very much the stomping, riff-heavy semi-dance hit from hell, something of a dry run for the later demolitions of Queen and other groups. "Vade Retro" takes a calmer but not less haunting approach, a mix of keyboards and drums providing rhythms while vocals swirl like disembodied choirs from the mountaintop. The clipped, commanding vocals throughout may only be understandable to those who know Slovenian, but a handily provided translation increases the extreme irony even further -- sample lyric, from "War Poem": "The stronger one will wash our faces and moisten our lips with a rag/and the night with a cold knife will cut us black bread." A couple of older cuts make return appearances on the American issue, including the marvelous "Drzava," Tito sample fully intact. ~ Ned Raggett

Record Collector (magazine) (p.87) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "It certainly has all the trappings of a Laibach recording: angst, venom and frustration."

The Slovenian music and art collective Laibach offer a multi-media experience that is equal parts agit-prop political rally, Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk, and stomping industrial-rock show. The band, which was founded under Communism in the early 1980s, is notorious for appropriating controversial images--including both fascist and Christian iconography--to confront and challenge complacency in society. Although Laibach's music is most easily categorized as industrial, they are also considered one of the originators of "martial," a stomping hybrid of rock, classical, traditional marches and other European folk forms. The highly innovative band continued to record, perform, and provoke well into the new millennium.

Click Here for Shipping Options and Policies

Shipping or Dimension weight in pounds: 0.25