Laibach
★★★★
Opus Dei
MUTE. CD/DL/LP
Slovenian provocateurs’ Freddiepowered 1987 hurrah.
L AIBACH’S AUDACIOUS first LP for Mute made an impact with a Wagnerian, Ger man-language reinvention of Queen’s One Vision. The titanic, martial posturing suggested subversion of a Leni Riefenstahl film (“Ein Fleisch, ein Blut”). Forming in Tito’s Yugoslavia, between communism and capitalism, Laibach’s self-proclaimed “totalitarian” rock music featured adaptations of Stalinist socialist realism and “Nazikunst”, but their long game has revealed much more of Mel Brooks’ Springtime For Hitler than any kind of Third Reich apologia. Meanwhile, pop music’s twin infinities of awe and absurdity would be investigated across entire re-workings of The Beatles’ Let It Be album and the Sound Of Music soundtrack. Here, the astronomic ambiguity is underscored on The Great Seal, featuring recitation of Churchill’s “fight them on the beaches” speech. This reissue is impressively augmented by 16 live tracks plus new artwork and sleevenotes.