Kapital

Laibach’s music from their earliest days in 1980 had been a series of hammer blows to the listener’s face and head, with martial horns and pounding drums and slogans delivered in a stentorian roar. When they covered Western pop songs, they did so in equally militaristic, stone-faced fashion. But on this, their fourth full-length album, they adopted a new, somewhat warmer posture, shifting from their totalitarian costumes to a look like silver-painted Art Deco warriors and embracing techno, acid house, and industrial, with the rhythmic battery and blaring horns replaced by funkier programmed beats and slick synth melodies. This isn’t pop music by any means, but it at least demonstrates that Laibach live in the same world as the rest of us, rather than landing periodically from their own alien planet. Two other things make the album stand out from their catalog: it contains no cover versions, instead offering close to 80 minutes of original material, and each format (double LP, cassette, and CD) contain unique versions of every track. Collect ’em all!