ALBUM REVIEWS

Laibach
IRON SKY O.S.T.
MUTE 21.5.12
@www.vanguard-online.co.uk


Everyone’s favourite heavy / art fusion band, Laibach, have soundtracked the frankly bonkers Iron Sky – an everyday story of an invasion by Nazis from the moon. Nazis that live on the dark side of the moon, in a swastika-shaped moonbase. And when they say this is the soundtrack, it pretty much is – lots of dialogue, lots of incidental snippets. With forty tracks on the album, none are fully fledged songs or tunes, all are accompanying scenes. Bonkers scenes. Scenes of rays that turn Black people into Aryans, scenes of torture, marching and invasion, mixing sounds of suspense with plentiful pomp.

Yup, plenty of pomp, mostly nicked from (or as the sleeve has it, “inspired by”) Wagner. Alongside the usual borrowings of Ride Of The Valkyries, there are plentiful robbings from Gotterdamerung, Siegreid and Rheingold. It ends on the prelude to Parsifal. If you have an encyclopedic knowledge of The Ring Cycle and a leaning to geekery (the two do kind of fit together….) this lends itself to hours of trainspottery fun. Aside from lots of bits of Teutonic opera there are small bits of rock tunes and a lot of big bassy thums, orchestration and a whole lot of B-movie dialogue (it’s largely the film without the images). In short, it’s an unusual listen, something to accompany waking dreams.

Strangely hypnotic.

Ross McGibbon

www.laibach.org