{"id":224,"date":"2004-03-29T21:22:53","date_gmt":"2004-03-30T05:22:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ryanspeck.com\/blog\/?p=224"},"modified":"2023-06-24T00:56:38","modified_gmt":"2023-06-24T07:56:38","slug":"laibach-wat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ryanspeck.com\/blog\/laibach-wat\/","title":{"rendered":"Laibach – “WAT”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Laibach<\/span><\/h4>\n

Category<\/span>: Industrial
\nAlbum<\/span>: WAT<\/em><\/p>\n

I have to admit: when last I listened to Laibach, they were on Wax Trax! and doing songs like \u201cLife Is Life\u201d. So, as you can imagine, I was a bit worried about having to listen to Laibach again. I never figured them for the type of band that makes many changes over time. Color me surprised.<\/p>\n

Putting Laibach\u2019s WAT<\/em> into the CD player, I was immediately delighted to hear the dark, brooding atmosphere of \u201cB Mashina\u201d. I can now see where Rudy Ratzinger picked up his dark Germanic sound\u2026 No more is the Laibach that makes ludicrously funny songs from bits of operatic orchestral music and overstressed, bassy Teutonic vocals. Well, not for the most part.<\/p>\n

Laibach isn\u2019t a joke anymore, I\u2019m glad to say. The previously mentioned Teutonic vocals are still present, though they add more of a Rammstein-esque darkness to the music than the previously humorous tone the vocals took. And there are still orchestral string touches and operatic movements, but they come off as genuinely moving and powerful in comparison to the ham-fisted Queen covers of the olden days.<\/p>\n

WAT<\/em>, which is hopefully representative of all of Laibach\u2019s latest output, is built on pounding electronic drums, minimalist sequencing loops, the best usage of orchestral stabs that I\u2019ve heard since the mid-90\u2019s, and great noise and vocal layering. The music remains danceable while still having a very subconscious sinister and harsh edge\u2026 I\u2019m talking about music to beat nuns by, all topped by the growling, guttural German vocals that make En Esch\u2019s German ramblings sound more like one of the Vienna Boy\u2019s Choir\u2019s greatest hits.<\/p>\n

I never would have imagined a day where Laibach would have actually made an album that would drive me to dance. But that album is here. And it is one mean, dark bastard of a dance album\u2026 Which almost makes up for \u201cLife Is Life\u201d.<\/p>\n

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from ReGen Magazine (~4\/2004)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Laibach Category: Industrial Album: WAT I have to admit: when last I listened to Laibach, they were on Wax Trax! and doing songs like \u201cLife Is Life\u201d. So, as you can imagine, I was a bit worried about having to listen to Laibach again. I never figured them for the type of band that makes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"index","bgseo_robots_follow":"follow","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-regen"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ryanspeck.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ryanspeck.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ryanspeck.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ryanspeck.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ryanspeck.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.ryanspeck.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":489,"href":"http:\/\/www.ryanspeck.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224\/revisions\/489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ryanspeck.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ryanspeck.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ryanspeck.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}