Author: Sebastijan Videc
Artist: Sabaton
Label: Nuclear Blast
Release: 2014
Length: 37:00
Rating: 4/5
Sabaton are something of a phenomenon in the world of power metal. Metalheads either love them or hate them; there seems to be no middle ground. I also find it interesting that their fans come not just from power metal but from other genres too. What makes the Swedes different from the plethora of other bands in the genre? One thing’s for sure: the lyrical theme. While the vast majority of the rest try to charm their listeners with dragons, princesses and swords, Sabaton have charged (mostly) onto the battlefields of World War II. And you have to admit, a German 88mm anti-aircraft gun (flak) leaves behind far worse damage than a knight on a white horse. Then there’s Joakim’s baritone, which brought the ‘power’ back to power metal.
Heroes arrives two years after what most people consider the best Sabaton album, Carolus Rex. With Carolus the guys proved they can make a quality concept album and evolve their sound. Making an equal follow-up thus became a very tall order. To complicate things even more, four of the six members left the band before the release of the previous album. But no worries: Joakim Bróden and his faithful bassist Pär Sundström put together a new, young crew that spent the last two years getting hardened on countless gigs criss-crossing every continent. Heroes is thus the first album recorded with the rejuvenated lineup.
With their seventh studio album, Sabaton return to their home waters of World War II. Do Heroes reach the level of Carolus Rex? Sadly, no. But all is not lost. In my opinion, if Carolus deserves a 4.5, then the new record gets a 4. Don’t really expect anything on this album that you haven’t already heard from Sabaton (well, there’s one surprise). They’ve defined their musical style and it’s understandable that they stick to it. The grandiosity and song structures from the previous album carry over to this one, which definitely adds an epic touch. The album’s strongest trump card, though, is the stories the “Heroes” sing about. Most of their earlier songs sang of battles and events, whereas the lyrics on this album are dedicated to individuals or units who wrote themselves into history forever through their selfless acts.
The album kicks off with the hard-hitting ‘Night Witches’, which slightly recalls Ghost Division and could become a concert opener in the future. The ‘Night Witches’ were members of the 588th Night Bomber Regiment of the Soviet Air Force. This unique all-female unit was tasked with bombing German positions at night. The girls flew canvas-covered Polikarpov Po-2 biplanes, and more than causing material damage, their job was to rob Wehrmacht soldiers of sleep and psychologically wear down the German army’s resolve. Some pilots flew over 1,000 combat missions (American bomber crews finished their tours after thirty!), and to improve their odds of survival, they would cut their engines before attacking, gliding silently over their targets and dropping their bombs. It was precisely this inaudibility that gave the German soldiers the idea of witches on silent brooms, and hence the name ‘Night Witches’.
‘No Bullets Fly’ is one of the album’s better tracks. More heavy metal than power metal, it tells of an interesting incident that took place in the skies over Germany on December 20, 1943. During a raid on the Focke Wulf aircraft factory, anti-aircraft fire hit a B-17F Flying Fortress bomber (Ye Old Pub), piloted by Charles “Charlie” Brown. The hit destroyed the Plexiglas nose of the plane and one of the engines, and badly damaged another. With only two working engines, the damaged B-17 began losing speed and slipped out of the safety of the tight bomber formation, becoming an easy target for Luftwaffe fighters. They damaged yet another engine, killed the tail gunner and wounded most of the crew. Because the air supply system was damaged, Charlie put the plane into a descent to a lower altitude so nobody would pass out. Pilot Franz Stigler watched the drama in the sky from the ground and immediately took off in his damaged Messerschmitt Bf 109G-6, but when he saw the state the plane was in, he decided not to shoot it down. He tried to get the bomber’s crew to understand that they should land in Germany or fly toward neutral Sweden, but the Americans didn’t understand him and continued on their way home toward England. When Franz gave up trying, he flew in tight formation with the damaged bomber to the coast of the Channel, where he saluted them and flew back toward his home base. After the war the two pilots met and became good friends.
The intro of Smoking Snakes is suspiciously similar to Aces in Exile, and the song itself falls into the Sabaton average. The story is about the little-known Brazilian involvement in the European part of the war. The Brazilian Expeditionary Force began fighting in Italy in July 1944 and proved themselves in combat, both on the ground and in the air, taking part in several tough battles on the southern front. The name Cobras Fumantes, as they were called, stems from political uncertainty, when people said it was more likely that snakes would start smoking than that these forces would actually go off to fight in Europe. On April 14, 1945, three soldiers got separated from the rest in battle and, with no thought of surrender, held off a larger German unit on their own until death. After the battle the Germans buried them out of respect and wrote on the cross “Three Brazilian heroes”.
Next up is Inmate 4859, a slow, dark song with a whiff of the previous album. The story is about Witold Pilecki. At the outbreak of World War II Witold was an officer in the Polish army. After the German occupation he founded a resistance movement and in 1941 had himself voluntarily imprisoned in the Auschwitz concentration camp. From there he secretly reported to the Polish government-in-exile in London about the horrors the Germans were committing in the camp. The so-called Witold’s Report is the first official record of the Holocaust taking place in Auschwitz. He also managed to organize a resistance movement inside the camp, and in 1943 he escaped from it. Five years later he was executed by Stalinist forces, accused of collaborating with foreign (Western) powers.
To Hell And Back is one of those songs that will drive halls, stadiums and all the other Sabaton concert venues wild, since with its infectious wind-instrument melody (folk metal?) and bouncy rhythm it’ll get the crowd’s bodies moving spontaneously. Audie Murphy was one of the most decorated soldiers of World War II. He won every possible US Army decoration, as well as medals for heroism from Belgium and France. In January 1945 near Colmar in France he single-handedly held off an entire German company for an hour, then, with reinforcements, wounded and out of ammo, led a counterattack. After the war he threw himself into a film career and in 1959 made an autobiographical film titled To Hell And Back. Like many others, he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, which wasn’t talked about much back then, and reportedly slept with a loaded shotgun under his pillow. Murphy died in a plane crash at just 46.
The Ballad of Bull is something of a surprise on the album, as it’s a piano ballad of a kind Sabaton haven’t recorded before. Personally I don’t think Bröden’s vocals are quite right for this type of song, but that’s a matter of taste, of course. Leslie “Bull” Allen had a tough childhood. He and his sister grew up in an orphanage, and by the time he joined the army at 21 he already had a decade of physical labor behind him. Bull was sent to Palestine, where he trained as a medic and stretcher bearer. His comrades loved him, since he had an excellent sense of humor, was a good sportsman and never showed fear. After the battles in Libya and Syria, he was sent closer to home, to fight the Japanese in Papua New Guinea. He became famous at the battle for Mt. Tambu, where, in the middle of the fury of war, without a trace of panic or fear, he carried twelve wounded American soldiers off the mountain to safety. Sadly, Bull suffered from a mental illness that showed up toward the end of the operations in Libya and Papua New Guinea, leading to his early discharge from the army. The trauma was even so severe that he lost the power of speech for several months.
Resist and Bite is another of this album’s trump cards. Rörland’s AC/DC-flavored guitar intro and the passages in between, which rarely let up, give way toward the end to thunderous drums and Bróden’s punchy vocals, which for the first time in a long while use Latin phrases again (remember Aterro Dominatus?). The lyrics describe the heroic resistance of the Belgian Chasseurs Ardennais during the German invasion of Belgium. The brave unit held back the mighty German Blitzkrieg until they completely ran out of weapons. The valiant resistance was so fierce that commanders reported on it directly to Berlin.
Soldier of 3 Armies is more proof that the young guitarists do the job with distinction, laying down the rhythm with the heaviest riffs on the album. Lauri Allan Törni was a young man who had just joined the army when the Soviet Union attacked Finland and started the so-called ‘Winter War’. In the fighting at Lake Ladoga Lauri distinguished himself, for which he was sent to officer school. After that he was sent to Vienna, from where he returned to Finland as an SS second lieutenant. With his unit he carried out effective raids deep behind Soviet lines, which made him known and respected on both sides of the front. After the armistice was signed in 1944, he went to Germany, where he fought on the German side against Soviet forces, and then surrendered to the Western Allies. After the war he was imprisoned in Finland several times but always escaped, and in 1948 he emigrated to Sweden, from where he sailed to Venezuela and later settled in the USA as a political asylum seeker. In 1954 he joined the US Army and served in the special-forces unit known as the ‘Green Berets’. In 1964 he went on his first campaign in Vietnam, and the following year on a second. During a helicopter transport the helicopter crashed, and no trace of Lauri and the crew was left. In 1999 a Finnish-American team found the helicopter wreckage, and a few years later his remains were identified. Lauri is buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington DC, together with the helicopter crew, among the Vietnam casualties.
Sabaton released the single Far From the Fame back in 2012, and alongside Resist and Bite and To Hell And Back it’s yet another one of the standouts. Though the more Carolus-style epic approach doesn’t exactly go hand in hand with the grim story it tells, it’s precisely that epicness that guarantees live success. Karel Janoušek was born in Moravia and began his military career during World War I in the Czechoslovak Legions on the Russian front. After the war he joined the emerging air force. When the Germans took over Czechoslovakia, Karel became one of the key members of the resistance before fleeing to France, and from there to England. There he organized the founding of Czechoslovak fighter and bomber squadrons within the structure of the Royal Air Force, and the British gave him the rank of air marshal. After the war he returned to Czechoslovakia, but the communist regime imprisoned him in 1948 for being “infused” with Western ideology. Janoušek spent 12 years in prison, innocent.
Hearts of Iron again inherits the romanticism and grandeur of Carolus Rex, but once more it clashes with a rather gloomy story. The end of April 1945 was extremely bloody, with Germany hanging on the brink of defeat and Soviet forces mercilessly pounding the remnants of the German units. At that time the remaining soldiers of the 9th and 12th armies held a corridor toward the Elbe River, securing an escape into the hands of the Western Allies, an escape from the certain death at the hands of vengeful Soviet forces.
The tank tango danced by Joakim Broden will surely win Heroes new listeners while not disappointing the old ones. The crew has gelled brilliantly, Peter Tägtgren has once again delivered top-notch production, and there’s no doubt the “heroes” will charm the hearts and ears of metal fans. The only bitter aftertaste is that the record spins by in just a good half hour.
Line-up
Joakim Brodén – vocals
Pär Sundström – bass guitar
Chris Rörland – guitar, backing vocals
Thobbe Englund – guitar, backing vocals
Hannes van Dahl – drums
Production
Peter Tägtgren
Tracklist
1. Night Witches
2. No Bullets Fly
3. Smoking Snakes
4. Inmate 4859
5. To Hell And Back
6. Ballad of Bull
7. Resist And Bite
8. The Soldier of 3 Armies
9. Far From the Fame
10. Hearts of Iron
