LAIBACH レコード& CD

Review: Ever-changing Slovenian collective Laibach seems to have mellowed with age, with the band's inherent desire to court controversy (see their 2015 performances in North Korea for a relatively recently example) currently curtailed. Love Is Still Alive, which marks their first new music since the release of last year's well-received album Wir Sind das Volk, is actually an "extension" of the music they wrote to soundtrack the 2019 film 'Iron Sky -The Coming Race'. It is, they say, a "trip through space music genres of recent decades" (albeit with bonus nods to country, pop and so on) that loosely tells the story of a spaceship full of post-apocalyptic survivors making their way across the solar system. It's a lot of fun, all told, with the band expertly showcasing the breadth of their musical knowledge as well as skip-fulls of imagination.

Review: In 2015, long-serving Slovenian experimentalists Laibach became the first Western band to perform in North Korea, including a number of songs from "The Sound of Music" - a favourite in the DPRK since the 1960s - alongside their own material. Three years on, and with the assistance of Silence's Boris Benko and vocalist Marina Martensson, they've finally delivered their interpretation of the musical film's familiar soundtrack. Swaying between rock balladry, experimental synth-pop, darker tones and industrial style fuzziness, the band's covers are both revolutionary and revelatory, as staples such as "The Lonely Goatherd", "My Favorite Things" and "Do-Re-Mi" are given radical makeovers. As they did at the concert that inspired the set, they also give their interpretation of some traditional North Korean folk songs.