Reviewer:

9.7



204 users:

7.47

Band: Sabaton Album: The Great War Release date: July 2019

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[History Edition]

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[The Soundtrack Edition]

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The Future Of WarfareSeven Pillars Of Wisdom82nd All The WayThe Attack Of The Dead MenDevil DogsThe Red BaronGreat WarA Ghost In The TrenchesFields Of VerdunThe End Of The War To End All WarsIn Flanders FieldsThe Future Of WarfareSeven Pillars Of Wisdom82nd All The WayThe Attack Of The Dead MenDevil DogsThe Red BaronGreat WarA Ghost In The TrenchesFields Of VerdunThe End Of The War To End All WarsIn Flanders FieldsThe Future Of WarfareSeven Pillars Of Wisdom82nd All The WayThe Attack Of The Dead MenDevil DogsThe Red BaronGreat WarA Ghost In The TrenchesFields Of VerdunThe End Of The War To End All WarsIn Flanders FieldsYou know what rhymes with "Russia"?Remember how cool it was that Sabaton covered a song about Marines on their last album? Well, now they wrote one of their own.? More like. More like "Swedish Pillars Of Metal." More like "The Future Of Music." More like *Sorry. Let me start over.There's no denying that in any context "the Sabaton song" is confined to a limited palette of melodies. Swipe the chorus from "Poltava," boost a couple verses from "Night Witches," and pop in the bridge from "The Lost Battalion" and you've got "The Red Baron" (more or less). "Devil Dogs" belongs to the subclass I call(where it sits with "Smoking Snakes," "Attero Dominatus," and "Aces In Exile"). Lyrical parsimony is even harder to ignore; respecting the fact that Joakim and Pär are not writing in their native language, there are only so many times you can announce that "the battle has begun" before the audience begins to wonder when the battle will finally be over. Even I, a dyed-in-the-wool superfan, am not immune to the fatigue caused by this normally commendable attitude towards recycling; the road from "this is sort of disappointing" to "I always knew this was going to be their best album yet" is littered with the corpses of a thousand replays.But the thrust of my review ofwas that Sabaton have been working their ironclad Swedish tails off to improve their execution, andis the band's most polished and immaculate record to date. Compare "Fields Of Verdun" to anything fromor, or even: the production has taken an enormous step up. Joakim's vocal lines are doubled and better enunciated; he hits notes in the middle of a standard verse that he would have struggled to climb to a decade ago. The band is tighter and more cooperative than ever, accentuating those vocal lines with precise guitars and some of the best drum work to date - and the keys are much more present than on the last few albums, slathered all over every song to achieve that perfect sheen of bubblegum bliss. Chris Rörland's and Tommy Johansson's guitars absolutely shine in transitional flourishes and harmonious grooves, and Thobbe Englund's solo exemplifies the best of the band's new axe team: flashier and more self-indulgent than the work of Oskar Montelius and Rikard Sunden, but fitting in well with this more polished Sabaton On top of that, Sabaton do continue to experiment with song structures and new ways to buttress old concepts. "Attack Of The Dead Men" employs electronics in a manner not previously approached, resulting in an uncharacteristically eerie bridge to match a somber, dreary chorus. "The Red Baron" bounces with a "fast shuffle," as Joakim describes it, kicked off by no less prestigious a personality than Johann Sebastian Bach, and "The End Of The War To End All Wars" has no obvious precedent at all in Sabaton 's catalogue. "The Future Of Warfare" owes something to "The Lost Battalion" in its mid-chorus key change from dire to triumphant, but it rolls along at a loose clip all its own. Closing the album with the"In Flanders Fields" lendsa measure of maturity and gravitas that even detractors could respect. Setting John McCrae's famous poem to music not only showcases Joakim's more ambitious writing abilities, but puts a reflective cap on an album that is otherwise a shade darker, more violent, and more dire than the usual Sabaton release, even with the resilient pop tunes glaring through. This album is calledbecause it focuses on one of the most devastating and significant conflicts in human history. While it's fun to celebrate the courage of the Red Baron, T.E. Lawrence, and Francis Pegahmagabow - and these uplifting moods are where Sabaton are most at home - it is still possible to detect anger and despair over the fact that something so monumentally stupid was allowed to happen.I tend to follow the philosophy that the best Sabaton album is whichever one was just released, and it's business as usual with; I just can't help but snap my fingers every time "The Red Baron" kicks in. That glorious midsection of "Devil Dogs," the cool rhythms of "A Ghost In The Trenches," the absolutely-predictable-and-so-much-better-for-it anthem that is "82nd All The Way" - they're all so perfectly Sabaton , and that's just plain ol' perfect in my book. And let's take a moment to appreciate Tommy Johansson's rise through the ranks; years ago, he was , and now he's writing and recording his own actual Sabaton songs ("A Ghost In The Trenches" features his first writing credit with the band). With all the effort that has gone into polishing this record, the fascinating Sabaton History Channel that delves into the stories behind their songs, the Wargaming collaboration that produced (and the ), not forgetting that soundtrack package for Europa Universalis IV or how many historic performances the band has put on, it appears that Sabaton has really established itself as an entire institution, not just a band - like KISS , but for history buffs and also good. In conclusion, Sabaton is the best.