LAIBACH – “WAT” (20-year classic)

LAIBACH
“WAT”
CD (Mute/EMI)

May seven years have passed since then, of course we still have it in our ears, this bombastic instrumental conclusion of “Jesus Christ Superstar”, the last studio album of the Slovenians. And as if a few days have just passed since then, “WAT” starts right there, with an equally bombastic intro: “B Mashina”. Then the step back. Far into the past, “Dance with Laibach”, classic Laibach sound, an eighties dance floor filler. A look back at what made the group great years ago, and thus a showpiece of the album. Because with “WAT” Laibach for the first time take time to look at their own past, but not in the form of an unspeakable best-of release. Or? In a certain way it is, because in the course of the disc one repeatedly comes across set pieces from earlier works, whether they are hidden in the lyrics or in the music. Self-quotes, deliberately. And a puzzle game – where do I know this line from, where that melody? With all these quotations, however, “WAT” is anything but a glorified look into the past, but rather a grandiose new beginning after 20 years of band history, which does not deny its own history, but understands it as an elementary component of individual development. A perfect mixture of what Laibach once were and what Laibach will be in the future. Because “WAT” also makes it clear: this formation still has a lot ahead of it.

Arnulf Woock

(The review was first published in the Orkus! issue September 2003)

Listen to “WAT” on Spotify: