LAIBACH - Bremenmarsch: Live at Schlachthof 12.10.1987

With the monolithic "Revisited" 5LP box set in January one could think that there's no further need for releases delving into Laibach's past this year.

But then it is the Slovenian group's 40th anniversary. And also if 2020 is good for anything it is nostalgia for better times. Times in which live shows where a thing.

Well, in this particular case obviously not for me, because back in 1987 my ten year old self surely wasn't yet ready to be traumatized by a bunch of bellowing uniformed barbarians on the mission of audiovisual sensory overload.

LAIBACH - Bremenmarsch: Live at Schlachthof 12.10.1987 (LP+CD) (2020)

With the release of "Opus Dei" and especially the singles of their new original versions of Opus' "Life Is Life" and Queen's "One Vision" 1987 certainly is the most referenced year whenever the topic Laibach is brought up.

The liner notes on the back cover of this record basically are a summary of how busy that year was, including their first official shows in Yugoslavia after almost five years of not being allowed to use their name. Laibach not only toured throughout Europe, but also cooperated with Peter Zadek on "Macbeth", which even brought them to the US. Also on the more obscure part of their recording history they released the rare "Baptism Under Triglov - Klangniederschrift einer Taufe".

While several live recordings of this period already exist, most of them are rather hard listens due to their bootleg quality. But what Radio Bremen has now - after only thirty-three years - officially unleashed upon the world, sounds great and for the first time gives me a fully satisfying glimpse into  the excessive raw furor of a "regular" Laibach show during this era.

Never again has Milan Fras' deep roaring voice sounded so ridicilously over the top militaristic and exaggerated. And never again has Laibach's music exuded this kind of brutality, which so heavily relies on balancing brilliantly effective arrangements with intentionally utilized dilettantism.  

If I tried to pretend to have no previous knowledge of Laibach - how would I even begin to describe their performance? I mean... the foundantion of this music already is a mix of march, rock music, industrial and classical influences. Between stomping riffs and miserably failing attempts of rock star shredding the guitars have this impetuous uncontrolled quality, which gives the best early punk and extreme metal albums their rampant ferocity.

The same goes for the horns and trumpets, which never really let you settle on whether they are actually played good or bad. They are clearly too "out there" to work in real marching music. So are they punk? Or even jazz? Or can those not sometimes even be the same? And does all this even matter?

No matter if it's the great hits like "Geburt einer Nation" or "Leben heißt Leben", the deeper "Opus Dei" cuts like "How The west Was Won" or "Trans-National", if it's tracks inspired by their theater work or older "Nova Akropola" tunes like "Krvava Gruda - Plodna Zemlja" or "Država", which is updated with the german phrase "Machen wir Deutschland wieder frei!" here - Laibach 1987 was just brutal, relentless, in your face.

And they already sounded like no other band before or after.

Even the inevitable Rammstein who based their style to eighty percent on a mixture of Die Krupps and this (historically astonishingly short) phase of Laibach (and even incorporated the Malewitsch cross into their Logo) have never come close neither to the sheer madness nor the level of subversion Laibach put on display here. (And I'm not even a "hater", so calm down, offended fans!)

"Bremenmarsch" is the culmination of Laibach during the 1980s and as such an essential live document, which I cannot recommend enough. And yes, it's also a people pleaser for all those casual fans who are stuck in the past and never really moved past "Sympathy For The Devil". Guys, you have been missing so fucking much!

The album is available on CD or on vinyl, both sporting the infamous "Die erste Bom(b)ardierung über dem Deutschland" tour poster as cover artwork.
The LP also includes the CD, which is good, because the vinyl version only contains a selection of nine tracks, while the whole concert consists of fourteen. So there you have the one thing about this release which is a pity: Why not a double vinyl album?

This shit still rules though.

Because die Liebe, die Liebe ist die größte Kraft, die alles schafft.