With The Great War, recorded exactly 100 years after the events it honours, Sabaton have once more fortified their status as world-class power metallers, not only pushing their sound to new heights but solidifying their adeptness to tell stories and capture imaginations. The Attack Of The Dead Men, for all its grim storytelling, is the most joyful song you will ever hear about chemical weapons, thanks to Sabaton’s knack for lacing their power metal stride with disco-style grooves, while The Red Baron explores other throwback territories with 70s-inspired hard rock.īut to really get the most out of this album it’s worth checking out the ‘History Version’, which contextualises their sonic imaginations of Lawrence Of Arabia, the US marines and the German Air Force via bitesize narrative snippets. It may not be a shock to hear that The Great War also has a few crowd-pleasers. Three tracks later and The End Of The War To End All Wars pulls an even bigger stunt as tides of choirs summon the catastrophic end of times normally attributed to the foreboding thrill of black metal. Opener The Future Of Warfare is a solid slab of deep-chested scene-setting with a bullet-splattered percussive backbone and immediate, fiery riffs that lay a foundation for this record.īut once The Great War passes the halfway mark it chucks in a suckerpunch on the title track in a swirl of epic classical music, underpinning Joakim Brodén’s account of the Battle Of Passchendaele with a bombast that has rarely been heard at this level with Sabaton. It’s probably impossible ever to top Carolus Rex, but when. So, what you get is another solid outing from these Swedes. The War to End All Wars contains a handful of great tracks, some solid ones, some filler, and tracks that run too long.
But now, nearly two decades on from their very beginnings, Sabaton are looking like an even stronger prospect for 2019. As with most of Sabaton‘s catalog, fans will appreciate the output, and haters will continue to hate.
The Great War is, as usual, a rip-roaring, riff-addled march towards victory, coaxing influences from folk and power metal that sounds remarkably upbeat for an account of bloodthirsty mass destruction.