I’ll admit, though, the band’s last two WWI-themed efforts, The Great War and The War to End All Wars, didn’t really do it for me. They were both decent efforts, but had a lot of filler, a signature of Sabaton albums where they either deliver absolute bangers or some forgettable duds. And while Legends, has a similar MO, it’s better than the last two efforts, but still has some absolutely fucking banging tracks with some predictable filler.

Maybe the move on from a singular topic in the grim subject matter of WWI to their more traditional, varied military and historical themes of battles and personas from The Templar Knights, The Ronin, Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan, and Vlad the Impaler has reenergized Joakim Broden and co., as Legends is a little more banger than filler, with tracks that deliver the band’s trademark catchy, epic choruses and choirs/synths.

“Templars” opens with a strong number and a stern, marching chorus, and is up there with one of the band’s more memorable, catchy, better tracks, as are “Crossing the Rubicon”, “I, Emperor”, “Maid of Steel”, Iron Maiden-ish “The Duelist”, and fucking brilliantly catchy, marching album closer “Til Seger”, with its classic Sabaton key change (and a pace and verse similar to “Gott Mitt Uns”), which has jumped right up there with “Winged Hussars”, “Got Mitt Uns”, “Aces in Exile”, “To Hell and Back”, “7734” and “The Last Stand” as my go to Sabaton tunes.

But as with all their albums, tracks like “A Tiger Among Dragons”, “Impaler”, “Lighting at the Gates” and balladic “The Cycle of Songs” are totally skippable, and certainly won’t convert anyone to being a Sabaton fan if they are not already a fan of the band’s distinctly divisive power metal.

“TIL SEGER!!!!!!!”

To be fair, it’s not like war hasn’t been a constant part about being on planet Earth. But WORLD War? Jeez, seems sort of… archaic, no? Making bombastic, rousing power metal about heroism and battlefield glory and all that seems fun and exciting when the possibility of nuclear apocalypse isn’t breathing down our collective necks. And there was no way Sabaton could possibly have known that the potential real War to End All Wars would break out just before dropping an album of the same name. Tough luck, that.

But here we are, waiting with bated breath to see what shoe decides to drop next, and in truth, it’s unlikely that any set of circumstances could ever stop Sabaton from being Sabaton. They are no longer just a band – they’re an entity unto themselves. It’s no longer good enough to just show up with some new music – they have to deliver an entire experience – something that only a handful of acts in the world are truly capable of doing on any kind of similar level (Powerwolf and Amon Amarth come to mind, and perhaps the ONLY band capable of going bigger – Iron Maiden – though I’m not even sure if that’s true anymore). They’re a band not content to just sit back and deliver a standard album or put on a regular live show – they have to record gunshots and explosions to sample as drum sounds, they have to release 3 versions of an album including a “Soundtrack Version” and one with narration to create a fully cinematic-like experience, they have to host their own music festival AND cruise festival, and invite an entire military-garbed choir on stage to back them up. If it’s the true essence of Power metal you’re looking for – absolutely NO ONE is doing it with more unapologetic excess, with a more singular mindset of existing only for itself – than Sabaton.

Which makes reviewing The War to End All Wars something of a weird experience, because that over-the-top, go-for-broke Sabaton trademark? This sorta… isn’t quite it, exactly. Does that make The War to End All Wars unworthy Sabaton’s massive legacy?

No. Of course it doesn’t.

Getting to the nitty-gritty of it, The War to End All Wars is sort of an extension of 2019’s excellent The Great War. The band themselves even admitted that one album just simply was not enough to cover the massive scale of World War I (frankly, I’m not sure even two albums is scratching the surface), so they’ve gone back to the trenches to try and tell more of the stories they just couldn’t get to on the first go-around. But there are some definite differences between the two. While The Great War may have been the band’s biggest, boldest crown achievement yet, The War to End All Wars is a more streamlined, somewhat toned-back production (at least by Sabaton’s heavily inflated standards of scale). It’s almost as if the band really wanted to put more focus on the stories they were telling, instead of seeing how big they could go for the sake of grandeur. One could argue that goes against who the band is at their core, but the end result is actually very refreshing. Tracks like “The Unkillable Soldier,” “Soldier of Heaven” and “The Valley of Death” are truly some of the most focused, catchy tracks the band has ever put together, making it even easier to put a dumb grin on your face and sing along with your most outlandish macho voice – and isn’t that the whole point, anyway? You might come away more blown away by the sheer magnitude of The Last Stand or no-holds-barred attack of Heroes, but TWTEAW establishes the band as some of the metal world’s great songwriters, cheesiness and all.

“Hellfighters” is a perfect example of the band’s more laser-guided, precision attack. It’s a completely standard song structure, with fun, effective riffs reminiscent of a more modern Amon Amarth track, and it’s all pulled together with the kind of earworm chorus you’ve come to expect from these guys, and an excellent solo that shows off Chris Rörland and Tommy Johansson’s technical prowess without beating you to death with excess. It’s simple, and it still friggin’ slaps. It’s a sense of restraint that only further solidifies the band’s already ever-present confidence. But the crown jewel of this album by far is the insanely beautiful “Christmas Truce,” a song about the all-too-brief respite soldiers got on Christmas Day of 1914, where enemies laid down their rifles and left the trenches to come together and reclaim some sense of their humanity and mutual respect, before the bloodshed continued again the day after. It is one of the band’s most epic, poignant songs to date, and yet it still doesn’t try to do more than it needs to. You’d be forgiven if you expected a 2 minute break for the German-American Children’s Chorus to come in for a rendition of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” backed by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra or something, but no – some simple piano, a few chimes, and some really great, subtle backing vocals paint the picture just as vividly, with just as much an impact. You’ll even notice the piano strongly resembles “Carol of the Bells,” which is just a really clever play by the band. It’s really one of the band’s all-time greats.

Let me be absolutely clear – The War to End All Wars may indeed show an impressive, if unexpected level of restraint, but this is still a Sabaton record, through and through. It may be a little more subtle in its approach, more refined in its execution, but we’re talking about a band on a level of pomp and grandeur that is completely unmatched, so don’t get carried away and think they’re playing it soft. I really do think Sabaton have started to find a really nice middle ground here between rockets-blasting, swaggering excess, and good old-fashioned songwriting. Where The Great War and The Last Stand have the stylized flash and bombast of James Cameron or Steven Spielberg’s most audacious movies, The War to End All Wars is Saving Private Ryan. Just as epic, but with even greater impact. They’ve learned they can still get your heart racing and blood pumping, AND bring you to tears, without having to suffocate you in the process. When you put the whole picture together – the music, the live shows, the music videos and youtube history lessons, everything that the band touches and puts out into the world, there still is not a single band on earth even touching the meticulously crafted, all-encompassing production that is Sabaton. They’re simply the biggest Heavy metal band on Earth.

That said, it became clear that Sabaton’s albums, while largely fun  and catchy as hell, often have quite a bit of filler. As much as I absolutely  fucking love some of their songs, for every  “Winged Hussars”, “The Last Stand”, “Got Mitt Uns”,  “Aces in Exile”, “To Hell and Back” , “7734” or even the cover of Stan Ridgeway’s “Camouflage” (one of my real guilty pleasures), there are a surprising amount of ‘meh’, forgetful, skipable songs like “Night Witches”, “Poltava”, “Glorious Land”, “No Bullets Fly”, “Resist and Bite”, “Last Dying Breath” and others. And that trend continues with the World War 1 themed The Great War; about 1/2 just OK Sabaton songs punctuated with moments of utterly fucking bombastic catchy brilliance.

Like Heroes dealt with heroes from the band’s favorite conflict, World War II, The Great War deals entirely with World War I and though it’s not the first time the band has dabbled in the truly great war (“The Price of a Mile”, “Cliffs of Gallipoli”, “Firestorm”) this is the band’s first album completely dedicated to the conflict. The 11 songs, 38 minute affair covers various battles, historical figures and moments of the conflict with the band’s expected over the top style and heavily researched historical accuracy.

The album starts awkwardly, to the point where after the first 2 forgettable songs, the choppy “The Future of Warfare” and  promising chorus of “Pill’s of Wisdom” (concerning Lawrence of Arabia), I’m thinking Sabaton might have written and released a dud (I wasn’t impressed with the first single “Fields of Verdun”). But then the album hits a mini run of brilliance starting with “82nd All the Way”, a fucking barnstormer of a track, that’s bound to be up there as one of the band’s best, most epic catchy numbers, especially as it has a familiar ring to it that I can’t place my finger on, but its chorus will instantly worm its way into your memory. The same can be said for the album’s other ridiculously catchy standouts “The Attack of the Dead Men” (about the siege of Osowiec Fortress) , grin inducing “Devil Dogs” (about the Battle of Belleau Wood, which and I was humming to myself instantly, reminding me of “Smoking Snakes”, another cracking Sabaton tune) and “The Red Baron”, with its cool 70s keyboards.

But like I said, there’s some forgetful numbers, along with the opening duo you get the peppy but replaceable “A Ghost in the Trenches” (a song about Francis Pegahmagabow, the war’s most prolific sniper) and dull “Fields of Verdun” later in the album. But there is also two more somber, choral songs  befitting the subject matter, the title track and  rousing, synth heavy “The End of the War to End  All Wars”, both pretty solid, slower songs. The album ends with a  a pretty stirring choral rendition of the John McCrae poem “In Flanders Fields”, and as someone who has been in the actual trenches at Ypres, wandered around sanctuary wood and laid a wreathe at the Menin Gate and tangibly felt the profound sense of loss that still lingers in the air, you cant help but to be moved.

2019 has been a banner year for some of Power metal’s bigger acts like Gloryhammer, Battle Beast and Beast In Black, and that continues with Sabaton’s expected war themed delivery, though I think I still prefer The Last Stand as my favorite overall album so far.

Whereas the band’s previous album Carolus Rex concentrated on Swedish history and Charles XII, the new album Heroes sees Sabaton return to the more modern times as they educate the listener about various heroic personalities of outfits from World War 2. For example, opener “Night Witches” is about a Soviet bomber regiment and “Inmate 4859”, probably the darkest sounding tune on the 37-minute album, has vocalist Broden roll out his teutonic sounding R’s as he lectures us about Witold Pilecki who led the resistance movement in Auschwitz. The fastest and fiercest track on the album “Soldier of 3 Armies” speaks of the legend that is Lauri Törni, aka Larry Thorne; a Finn who fought the communist horde in three different armies throughout the years, before seeing his demise in a freak helicopter accident during the early years of the Vietnam War. John Wayne played a role loosely based on him in the 1968 movie Green Berets, but I digress.

Musically, at first light Heroes doesn’t deviate from the battle plan, like, at the fuck all and some might be offended and accuse the band of playing it too safe. Personally, I don’t mind it too much as Sabaton still does their spiel rather flawlessly; speedy power metal attacks spearheading the way while a few slower, anthemic metal ballads provide indirect fire to cover the movement. Seven albums in, there’s been enough variation to keep the Swedish fighting force battle efficient.

With that being said however, Heroes, does seem a bit less intoxicating from the predecessors, even if first time through I was grinning at the over-the-top ridiculousness, ruthlessly performed without showing the tongue in cheek. But closer recollection during a lull from the battle, there’s no denying that the first three tracks, while competent, are ultimately a bit meh in the grand scheme of things: The aforementioned “Night Witches” seems like a neutered version of The Art of War’s epic first round, “Ghost Division”. The follow-up, “No Bullets Fly” is a rather basic Sabaton tune that doesn’t seem to stick out for long, even if there’s an addicting “Killing machine!” shout in the chorus. The third track, “Smoking Snakes”, doesn’t improve things either as it’s probably the least interesting song in the tensome. Then there’s the aptly named “The Ballad of the Bull” that sees Sabaton dig through the cold corpse of Manowar for their belongings. The realization appears a bit like shooting a fly with an M114 howitzer, missing the subtlety and restraint Manowar was able to provide still in songs like “Heart of Steel” or “Master of the Wind”.

Yet, the rest of the time, Heroes sees Sabaton turbocharge their panzerwagen like they were on an excellent adventure with Bill and Ted through times of conflict and war. Tracks like “Resist and Bite”, the previously mentioned “Soldier of 3 Armies” and “Far From the Fame” do wonders to lift up the album. Then there’s a certain playful quality to tracks like “To Hell and Back”, which has some spaghetti western meddling going on, and on the closure “Hearts of Iron”, where Sabaton lob around in some J.S Bach’s “Air” to the mix right after stripping any traces of melancholy out of it — even while they’re lecturing about how the German forces of 9th and 12th armies protected the fleeing soldiers and civilians so they could escape the bloodthirsty Soviets and surrender to the Western forces.

Sabaton are pretty much the only thing resembling an audiobook rendition of the British Commando comic books, so either you like the pulpy, bombastic entertainment or you don’t, as Heroes won’t suddenly convert any deserters that the outcomes of war can be scary charming. For those in on it though, Heroes provides an enjoyable new set of lore to sing along to, crafted with skill and passion. In its whole, Heroes might not rise up to the accolades of the previous war efforts, but it’s a serviceable album that offers shiny highlights that’ll keep Sabaton’s live arsenal fresh and their chamber loaded.

Yet, I cannot help but feel that the Swedes might soon be headed too deep behind enemy lines and, depending on the next few albums, eventually face the junction where Manowar chose wrong as it got blinded by its own true metal schtick and forgot about actually writing a variety of quality tunes as they foolhardily chased for epicness — only to find themselves in a punchline.

Oh yeah. Speaking of Manowar in the bucketloads, there’s a few different versions of the album, one which has a whole 20-minute bonus disc dedicated to bonus tracks, and among those tracks lies “Man of War” — a tribute to the self acclaimed kings of metal. Quite fitting. The rest of the bonus tracks include Sabaton’s versions of Raubtier’s “En Hjaltes Vag”, Battle Beast’s “Out of Control” and one “For Whom the Bell Toll” and finally a reworked version of the band’s own “7734” from their Metalizer album.

With the Soviet army looming towards the city, the Polish resistance and the Armia Krajowa tried to liberate Warsaw from the Nazi occupation, thusly underlining Poland’s sovereignty before communist-backed Polish Committee of National Liberation could assume control.

The battle carried on for 63 days, before the Polish resistance was forced to surrender.Thousand lives on both sides were scarred, wounded, lost and dead. The bloodshed also left nearly 200 000 civilians dead.

SABATON‘s latest album Coat of Arms was released last May on Nuclear Blast Records―the band’s first release for the label. The album has been reviewed by our staff.

Watch the video, starring legendary PETER STORMARE (Bad Boys II, Hamilton), here.

The Swedes are back again, singing about war and metal (“Metal Ripper”) while reminding us that Bolt Thrower really ought to release a new album too. Luckily, Sabaton are here to give us a 40-minute lecture in history with songs such as “Uprising” (about the dire situation in Warsaw back in the day), “Screaming Eagles” (you know) and “White Death” that pays respect to Finnish sniper legend Simo Häyhä, who killed some 500+ Soviet soldiers in three months during the Winter War. A score, that even the cheaters in modern first person shooters have a hard time reaching.

Aside from a new set of songs, pretty much everything that I wrote in my previous review holds true here as well. We’re treated to gut-wrenchingly addicting melodies, simple but refined, their power second to none. Sing-a-long moments are provided like ammunition when the supply lines are intact; plentifully. They also make me question why they didn’t teach history at school in this manner. So goddamned catchy, that no doubt fists will be raised once war conquers the stages of the world: “Midway! We meet at Midway! Naval war!” Solos, too, roar again like the screams of dive-bombing Stukas – causing admiration at the receiving end. On top of it all, Joakim Broden’s peculiar but ever so commanding voice echoes through the blood-soaked battlefields. Huzzah!

Yet, all is not the same. Sabaton’s current sound seems to lean more towards the ’80s, both in production and songwriting. Perhaps it’s Daniel Mÿhr’s keyboard sounds, as they clearly belong to stadiums rather than tiny venues. Coat of Arms doesn’t strike you blind straight away like The Art of War did. It also comes off as slightly less epic than its predecessor. Mÿhr’s keys also feature a slightly more technological edge to them, rendering the sound slightly mysterious (“Wehrmacht”). There’s an element of complexity (“The Final Solution”) that I didn’t find in the previous album, but progressive this is not. Sabaton still rely on shell shocking the listener into submission with memorable, heart-pounding songs. Getting into the music is as easy as following direct orders! There’s a certain, dare I say it in the context of war, upbeat feel to the whole onslaught, reminding me slightly of Falconer’s excellent self-titled debut, albeit Coat of Arms is far from jolly. I’d say there are light traces of Angel Dust in there too — minus the thrash. The only IED is the song “Saboteurs”. For a song with a catchy chorus (no surprise there) it excels at being somewhat underwhelming amidst the rest of the ordnance.

While it’s hard to overcome the brilliance of The Art of War, Sabaton’s follow-up isn’t a bad one — far from it. It simply takes time to sink in like the burning oil tankers that were surgically torpedoed by the Wolf pack. Undoubtedly, Coat of Arms will see plenty of airtime during the upcoming summer and with it, Sabaton also prove once and for all to be at the top of the power metal food chain ― so dominant is their military might.

Those unfamiliar with this relevant band (as Russia and Georgia are currently going head to head), as I was before this album, should think of Bolt Thrower but remove the King Tiger Death Metal and switch it with Swedish/German power metal acts and throw in some Manowar. The string trio cuts through the front lines with catchy melodies, to the point riffs, roaming solos and by-the-book bass cover fire. Daniel Mullback brings order to the scene with his determined drumming, sometimes blitzkrieging through the songs with plenty of ferocity. Daniel Myhr completes the musical division with his supportive keyboard work that never strays out of its place. On top of it all, we’re treated with Joakim Brodén’s distinctive but commanding vocal delivery that features teutonic and even slavic undertones in pronunciation, making it all the more interesting. Unlike most of his compatriots in the genre, he leads the chariots with a harsher delivery. No ball-grabbing for high squeals here and that’s the way it ought to be. Every now and then, additional reinforcements come in the shape of choirs that usually go hand-in-hand with the tasty sing-a-long -parts. Sure you’ve heard it all, but the execution is nearly as perfect as was the element of surprise in Pearl Harbor and the band clearly carries its own personality through, raising it from the gutter to the spearhead. It also helps that instead of singing about slaying dragons and poking the maid in her prime, we’re treated with a manly subject of historic accuracy.

While the theme of Sun Tzu lingers around in short quotations from the book (usually relevant to the song at hand), the lyrics mainly revolve around more specific subjects with altering viewpoints. For example, the can of whoopass opener, “Ghost Division”, with its fast paced harmonies and vocal urgency tells a tale of Rommel’s armored shock force that took France by surprise. Such fast precision attacks that pierce through the lines, are also heard on songs like “40-1” and “Talvisota” of which the first tells story of Polish defenders against German attackers, while the latter introduces the world to the Frozen Hell of 1939 where Finnish army fought hard to protect its soil against a much more sizeable Soviet force.  The title song, “The Art of War” is a more epic and slower cut and somewhat more sinister than the rest. “Firestorm” brings a galloping closure that ties everything together, distantly resembling Manowar’s fast-paced combat maneuvers like “The Power of Thy Sword” or “Kill with Power” (not least because of the DIE! DIE! -shouts.)

However, two of my favorites on the album are not double bass-abusing counterstrikes but the more battle hymns like “Cliffs of Gallipoli” and “The Price of a Mile”. The first one is a beautiful piece that questions the cost of war while referring to the particular battle in Turkey in 1915. Some nice piano work and a theatrical approach bring a certain Iced Earth feel into mind. As for “The Price of a Mile” (about the unsurpassed meatgrinder that was World War 1), I take it’s going to kill live as the chorus “Thousands of feet march to the beat / It’s an army on the march / Long way from home / Paying the price in young men’s lives / Thousands of feet march to the beat / It’s an army in despair / Knee-deep in mud / stuck in the trench with no way out” is possibly the catchiest thing I’ve heard all year (and that goes for most of the choruses featured on the album.) The choir is used to perfection here, pinning the song down with the rest of the truly magical Heavy Metal Anthems. It’s a song that’ll surely raise fists to the air, uniting everyone in the audience like the event of war unites those experiencing it.

The album is perfectly balanced; when furious hand-to-hand combat starts to consume the listener, it’s time for a lull with the more mid-paced songs (such as “Panzerkampf” and its romantic Mother Russia -chants.) The slower anthems are the calm before storm when everyone’s thrown back into the turmoil again. The production is also clear but meaty and heavy, leaving nothing to complain about on that department either.

I have to say this is one of those unexpected gems of 2008. Sabaton’s The Art of War is a prime example of quality heavy metal. Standing tall with its own two legs, carrying its battleworn, baptized-by-fire body proudly. Ready to fight and make an impact, rather than drown and lay forgotten at the bottom of the sea like the lost souls of naval warfare. In fact, musically the feeling I got from the first listen was similar to that when I heard Avantasia’s debut album; sure it wasn’t anything that no one hadn’t heard before but none the less it was clear that it was something special. Of course, time will only tell how The Art of War holds up in the long run, but after so many repeated listens and it still kicking my ass like an Arc Light’s barrage, I’ve got a positive feeling…

Cover your field of fire and GET IT! That’s a direct order!