Sabaton // Review
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CD: The Art of War Released: 30 May 2008 |
Formed at the end of the last Century, Sabaton are a six piece Swedish power metal band, back with their fifth album The Art of War.
Continuing on the form of their previous albums, the main lyrical content for this album is specific battles of World War Two, beats writing generic power metal songs about dragons, knights and wizards.
Sun Tzu Says is taken directly from Tzu’s book on Chinese Military strategy before the rebel rousing, keyboard filled semi opera of Ghost Division bursts straight into the foreground, to be fair you could be easily fooled into thinking this was taken from a Nightwish album.
Tracks like The Art of War, 40:1 and Unbreakable will instantly have you banging your head if you’re a fan of bands like Hammerfall and Turisas, there’s plenty of galloping riffs, drum breaks, sing-a-long choruses and well thought out lyrics, power metal at its very best!
Cliffs of Gallipoli sees the band go down the ballad road with some very eccentric key slides, however this is rectified with the fast fret burner that is Talvisota. Union (Slopes of St. Benedict) is extremely euro-metal, but it is so powerful it makes you want to pick up arms and join in the battle.
Firestorm sees the album out with a high, a fast paced, power metal staple, which is what Sabaton are good at, rather than some of their slower, more questionable songs.
Not only is this an album of songs that are fantastic to listen to, but the overall album production is fantastic, a hell of a lot better than some mainstream artists, so kudos to Tommy & Peter Tägtgren!
This is one of the better power metal releases in recent months, a boost for Sabaton is that it should see them get noticed a lot more by mainstream metal press.
Review by John Consterdine
Track Listing
| The Art of War |
[01] Sun Tzu Says |
Buy From
Other Reviews
Barfly, Glasgow, UK // 21 May 2007