Customer Reviews

Wat

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This CD is amazing! It sold out in a week from our local shop. Aside from the vocals the music itself sounds very little like old Laibach...there are still some choirs and orchestra bits, but most of that crap has been replaced by a 909, distortion pedal and Reaktor...it rocks! Stiff grizzly beats with minimalist synth basses and Laibach's trademark demonic vocals. Achtung is a standout but all the tracks are good...the CD also includes a video for Tanz Mit Laibach! Buy it. You won't regret it.

Having been a fan of Laibach since the 1980s, I am glad to see them returning to form. While albums like Nato and Jesus Christ Superstars had their moments, Laibach seemed on the verge of turning themselves into a novelty act with their (usually superior to the original, but still ridiculous) cover songs and mediocre forays into techno. Whatever happened to them in the last 7 years is a good thing, because Wat is an even more successful return to the form that made them brilliant than Front 242's rather successful Raw & Pulse recordings. There are no silly or disposable tracks on Wat. If Laibach tours the US for Wat and releases 10 more albums in their pioneering vein (but now with better production!), they'll easily make up for the torture of the Jesus Christ Superstars tour, the Also Sprach Johann Paul II project, and their 7 year hiatus from releasing new Laibach albums.

Just got this from Mr. FedEx guy today. This does not sound like Nitzer Ebb, this does not sound like Rammstein, it sounds like Laibach. There is no other way to describe it. They have evolved past the guitar-heavy nonsense in 'Jesus Christ Superstars' and come up with something entirely new. I would not have it any other way. This is art at its purest: satirizing leftist and rightist agendas at once, occasionally with a dancy beat behind it.

Anyone using the word 'electroclash' to describe Laibach needs a kick in the head.

I would consider this the best Laibach release since Opus Dei.
With the electronic nature of this album, one might want to make comparisons to Kapital or NATO. However, it seems that Laibach are drawing much more heavily from their earlier works and this album could be more easily associated with Rekapitulcaija or the self-titled Laibach.

WAT will make a good introduction to new listeners who have missed the last couple of decades of Laibachkunst.

I can only hope that with the vitality of this new work, Laibach and NSK end their period of hibernation and once again become more active on all fronts.

I've always loved Laibach, but this album was an unexpected treat for me. Even if I had specific expectations for this album, I couldn't have imagined the new direction they would've branched off to. Don't worry... although the style of the album is different, you still get Ivan's incredible basso profundo, you still get some orechestral elements, and you still get the Eastern Bloc sounding choirs... but this time around, it is melded with hard, almost old-school sounding electronics and stiff beats. Imagine earlier Nitzer Ebb married to the typical growling Laibach vocals and you will be well on your way to understanding what this album sounds like. A rare combination of something that sounds vaguely familiar while having an identity all it's own. Brilliant!

Mixed feelings about this one. The (important) downside is that Laibach has hardly done anything musically on this album on their own (look at the credits and see Umek et.al. most of the time+ Tanz Mit Laibach = DAF "Mussolini"+ does its really take like 7 years to make?). However, the overall impression is very strong and "zi meesidz iz klier". Many quotes/references to their previous work which leads to ask whether this is a goodbye or a synopsis or a lack of something new to say.(???)Keep wondering. I stick(sadly) with the goodbye. 4 stars nonethesless and a definite 5 on the background of everything else that is happening in contemporary music.

P.S. Please, no Rammstein comparisons. If you do compare, please just remember the following few things:

1) Laibach is not German and Laibach is not a nazi group (as opposed to Rammstein's all too obvious flirtations)
2) Rammstein came way after Laibach
3)Laibach are no industrial or "heavy metal". They make concept albums that are much more diverse, mixed in musical style, much more political , philosophical or satirical than anything Rammstein would ever imagine to incept.

Music from the group Laibach is just gettin better with every album, and for me this one is their best, by far. My favorite song is their industrial version of B-masina (a cover song, originaly from Siddharta), also the whole album is filled with others strong and rythmical songs.... oh, just can't wait to go to their concert in Ljubljana(Laibach)...

I bought this for my wife for Christmas. It arrived on time, in great shape, and she loved the tracks.

Monumental. Musically, a definite must-have for old school EBM fans, nuff said.
Industrial dance music is still very much alive opposed to recent music, under the term, claiming more influence from trance and techno.

WAT arrived in my music collection over a year ago and has enjoyed more or less constant CD changer time ever since.

Picture a dancier Opus Dei, or perhaps a more ominous Let it Be, and you'll have some idea what's going on here. It's as if the whole alpine aesthetic that was discarded for Kapital, NATO, and Jesus Christ Superstars (their creative nadir, I think most fans would agree, and an obvious attempt to cash in on the whole mid-90's industrial metal thing, the ONLY time they've ever done anything involving trends other than setting them)has returned, mutated to incorporate the techno aesthetic of their mid-period stuff, as well as the omnipresent foreshadowing of doom of their most recent work. Not that I don't agree with their assessment.

B-Maschina is the only cover, and since I don't know the original and doubt anyone else will either, it barely counts as such, and is, like every other cover they've ever done, distinctly Laibach. It's easily my favorite song on the album. Just try to get the chorus out of your head.

The rest of the album is also excellent. Tanz Mit Laibach is an obvious appeal to the goth/industrial DJs of the world (with its DAF-pastiche stomp), as is much of the album. Overall, it's not quite as good as some of the classic material from the late 80's, but compare it to the recent work of the roughly contemporary Front Line Assembly, and its easy to see who still has some artistic integrity. WAT stacks up nicely against anything in its genre being done today, including the utterly brilliant new offerings from fellow industrial dinos Skinny Puppy, Front 242, and Klinik. This really is a great time to be an electronic music fan; even Kraftwerk have had a reasonably credible new offering.

If you are a fan, you already own this, if not, you can feel comfortable about purchasing it if you're curious about the band and want to know what they're about. It's a great bridge to the somewhat more inscrutable (but ultimately more rewarding) early to mid period stuff like Opus Dei and Let it Be, and almost accessible enough to be given to Rammstein fans...