POP REVIEW : Hypnotic Industrial Rock

Sometimes you feel as if you should study before you go to a Laibach concert. The group comes from the Yugoslav republic of Slovenia lugging a heavy baggage of political and aesthetic ideology that’s all but incomprehensible to anyone who’s not up on contemporary European avant-garde philosophy.

But a lot of the slogans sound great, the band has used a couple of its albums to deconstruct the Beatles and the Stones, and Sunday at the Palace, where they sold Laibach neckties along with T-shirts in the lobby, the group mounted a concert that looked like an evening with Kraftwerk as staged by Fritz Lang. It was pretty absorbing even if you don’t care what they think about capitalism and totalitarianism.

With gilded faces and robot movements, the six musicians created heroic tableaux that reflected and mocked Eastern Bloc institutional art. Lead singer Milan, in a headdress that looked like an elongated aviator’s helmet, struck ominous gestures with mechanical precision, while the two players flanking him pounded drums in flawless unison.

Even though the lineup included a guitarist, a bassist and a drummer, the music was overwhelmingly electronic, and Laibach is pretty much regarded as an industrial-rock band, even though its approach is miles from such danceable industrialists as Front 242 and KMFDM. The Palace audience appeared hypnotized by its austere, symphonic structures, and the group offered no release in any rock ‘n’ roll sense.