LAIBACH - Volk Review

With Volk Laibach will again surprise friend and enemy. Were they looking for the accessibility of the clubs with 2003’s WAT which had Teutonic pounding songs, this time Volk offers a totally different world of sound, that is also typical for Laibach. Musicwise and productionwise this time you can clearly hear the influence of the Slovenian producer duo of Silence. Volk sounds electronic, avantgarde, cinematographic and dramatic, but at the same time neo-classical and folkloristic....full text There are very few bands doing what Laibach does. If I heard about a new pop album dealing with, say unemployment or migration - indeed almost any subject transcending the individual and dealing with society on a bigger scale - I would probably say "Laibach, right?". In the context of pop music, the ability of this Slovenian band to cross cultural borders and raise a stir with their confrontational, probing and complex expression, is nothing less than astonishing....full text On first listening to the grand political statement that is Volk I was convinced Laibach don't like my city. I'm a Londoner, a resident of the metropolis that sent the English language out across the globe, that ruled a quarter of it for a while, that replaced fading military supremecy with growing cultural and lingual hegemony, aided and abetted by what became the United States and other assorted former colonies....full text