“While Sabaton aren’t exactly reinventing the wheel with the new album, this time they’ve added more keyboards plus choir and orchestral parts. But at their core, they stay true to themselves. So if you like any Sabaton album, you’ll very likely like this one too, and vice versa. “
Label: Nuclear Blast
Release date: July 19, 2019
Production: Jonas Kjellgren
Album length: 38:27 min
Genre: Power Metal
Rating: 7.0 / 10
Lyrics about the horrors and heroism of war, backed by punchy power metal riffs, are the mega-successful recipe the Swedes cooked up with their second album, Primo Victoria. We have to admit that stories of heroism and battle, plus war’s obligatory companion, death, fit the heavy metal world like a glove, and Sabaton skillfully turn all of it into their ever-growing success, crowning this year with a new concept album – ‘The Great War’. With most of the original lineup gone, the era of concept albums clearly kicked off too – ‘Carolus Rex’, about the iconic 18th-century Swedish king, ‘Heroes’, about war heroes from different eras all over the world, ‘The Last Stand’, about hopeless battles with no surrender, and now the latest one, about the events of World War I.
After a rather cinematic instrumental intro, the album kicks off with ‘The Future of Warfare’. While World War I was still fought the “old” way, taking ground in the trenches, meter by meter, it also saw the debut of new weapons that changed the course of combat and, a hundred years later, are still present on every battlefield today. One of those new weapons is the tank, which this song is dedicated to. A classic fast Sabaton album opener, it quickly morphs into the story of Lawrence of Arabia, bringing the album’s first guitar solo duel between Rorland and Johansson. Alvin York, a Medal of Honor recipient, destroyed a machine-gun nest with his fellow soldiers and captured a large number of German troops, and ’82nd All the Way’ tells of his exploits with a bit of a Stratovarius sound, while the keyboard-heavy ‘Attack of the Dead Men’ conjures up a macabre atmosphere of Russian soldiers poisoned by chemical gas, who charged out of the Osowiec fortress like zombies at the horrified German lines. Meanwhile, the American Marines storm Belleau Wood to the sound of another guitar duel, the battle where Gunnery Sergeant Dan Dealy, a two-time Medal of Honor recipient, amid heavy machine-gun fire, yelled his famous words to his comrades: “Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?!”
With an opening Bach fugue in G minor, the album’s midsection bows to the greatest flying ace of World War I, Manfred von Richthofen, better known by his nickname, the Red Baron. Heavily backed by Hammond keyboards, the song sounds quite Deep Purple-ish. Next comes the album’s first epic moment, the title track ‘Great War’, which sounds truly mighty with its orchestral parts and choir, and questions the sense of war’s suffering, especially the kind endured in the battle of Paschendale. ‘Ghost in Trenches’ is the first song Broden wrote together with newcomer Johansson. The lyrics are dedicated to a Native Canadian sniper who killed as many as 378 Germans and captured a good 300 more. The epic finale follows – ‘Fields of Verdun’ is about the longest battle of World War I and has an excellent chorus, while ‘The End of War to End All Wars’, with piano, string orchestra and an even bigger choir, redefines the epicness of this album. The album closes with an a cappella choir performance of ‘In Flanders Fields’, by Canadian poet John McCrae, who died on the battlefield in 1918 from pneumonia.
The band has also released the album as a so-called historical edition, which includes descriptions of the events before each song, and there’s a “soundtrack” version too, which delivers instrumental versions of the songs, though it also features vocals from famous Nightwish singer Floor Jansen, who is married to Sabaton drummer Hannes van Dahl.
All quiet on the western front, to borrow the title of the book by German author Erich Maria Remarque. While Sabaton aren’t exactly reinventing the wheel with the new album, this time they’ve added more keyboards plus choir and orchestral parts. But at their core, they stay true to themselves. So if you like any Sabaton album, you’ll very likely like this one too, and vice versa.
author: Sebastijan Videc
Track list:
1. The Future of Warfare
2. Seven Pillars of Wisdom
3. 82nd All the Way
4. The Attack of the Dead Men
5. Devil Dogs
6. The Red Baron
7. Great War
8. A Ghost in the Trenches
9. Fields of Verdun
10. The End of the War to End All Wars
11. In Flanders Fields
Lineup:
Joakim Brodén – vocals
Chris Rörland – guitar
Tommy Johansson – guitar
Pär Sundström – bass
Hannes van Dahl – drums
