Catchy but with depth

So again Laibach. A band that I had followed in the '80s with great interest, but then somehow lost from sight ... Suddenly they are back quite large: first with the soundtrack to Iron Sky (incidentally also worth seeing and hearing!) and now with a very big bang: "Spectre" which means as much as 'a specter is haunting Europe' and even the Karl-Marx-reference imTitel makes it clear that the band does not want to bother with shallow pop.

In fact, I know a few musicians who manage their music so recharge with meaning, to make it in such complex ways, sometimes subtle sometimes quite directly, to the medium. The fact that can still sometimes come out pleasing melody lines is not taken for granted - just not for Laibach - but it works, and indeed even pretty good. One might think that the band have said: if we have something to say, then let the people also listen.

So the work begins with a catchy pop piece that bears only at first sight only in the title, the political message: the glorification of "Whistleblowertums" is on the agenda, and who without the whistling in the song of Peter Gabriel's "Games Frontiers "remembers who has discovered just another level of meaning. It will not be the last ...

It follows a wide range of commentaries on current affairs: about "Occupy Wall Street" and "Anonymous" to topics such as Islam and (of course) addressed the Euro crisis. There are never the simple truths, the lower songwriter might have pushed forward - the listener is stopped to follow the arguments, and you whenever might think you have understood the meaning, a new abyss, a new level of interpretation opens up.

On most successful I found that with the final piece of the CD: the blues classic "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean" by Blind Lemon Jefferson was here in typical Laibach-style comparison "industrialized". He is still (or maybe: "again") just under the skin, as then, a hundred years ago. Moreover, he makes us shudder, it is what awaits us at the end of the "Road to Serfdom": the old lamenting chants of the slaves, only in a new, more modern garb?

For micht far the record of the year!