Just when you were getting sick of music that just offers wafty platitudes, Laibach return to save the day with Spectre, their first proper album since 2006’s Volk. While there is none of the laugh-out-loud subversion of their infamous covers of Queen’s “One Vision” or “Live is Life” by eighties horrors Opus, Spectre still packs a mighty punch of dirty, electronic beats and provocative and intensely political songs. This album is not polite background music.
Opening track “The Whistleblowers” is a tribute to modern digital anarchists Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden, set to a camp, Euro-disco backing that suggests the Pet Shop Boys’ take on “Go West”. However, from the opening bars of the next tune, “No History”, the volume goes up and the electronica gets harsher and nastier. All the while, Milan Fras’ growling vocals intone KLF-type manifestoes and calls to insurrection.
“No History” sets the tone for much of the rest of the album, which turns up the heat on the political strongmen of Europe with pulsating, dirty beats that occasionally recall Eighties new beaters Front 242. If this suggests the po-faced stances of former techno-anarchists and tabloid folk devils, the Spiral Tribe, rest easy. There is nothing dry or worthy here and a ridiculous and black sense of humour is never far from the surface. The Wagnarian chorus of “Walk with me” shouts at the Devil and calls forward the resistance, while the crunching beats of “Eat Liver!” would be enough to fill any dancefloor in technoland. “Resistance is Futile” also pushes into techno territory with added orchestral samples, while “Koran” is the nearest that Laibach get to chilling out with a “We are the World”-type moment with most of the cheese removed.
Public Enemy’s Chuck D used to refer to hip-hop as Black CNN. In 2014, Laibach are European CNN.
