SABATON — The War to End All Wars (review)

SABATON — The War to End All Wars album cover

Album · 2022 · Power Metal

4/5 · 2022-03-04
siLLy puPPy

Named after the foot armor of a knight ready for battle, SABATON has become Sweden’s top dog in the world of metal for two decades now and only continues to ensure its legacy with a continuation of war themed albums that attract new fans. Formed in 1999, SABATON has gone through some major lineup shifts but seems to have come of age in 2012 when a totally new version of the band started to craft concepts albums in the form of “Carolus Rex.” Starting with the following album “Heroes” which hit the #1 spot on the Swedish album charts, the band has become one of the most successful power metal bands in the world in the company of the other “Big Four,” Helloween, Dragonforce and Blind Guardian.

THE WAR TO END ALL WARS is the band’s 10th studio album and the sequel to 2019’s “The Great War” which together forge a conceptual musical journey that focuses on the dramatic tragedies that surround the first World War. The first edition of this one two punch reached #1 on both the Swedish and German charts and continued the band’s status as one of the most popular bands to exist in the spectrum that connects the traditional heavy metal sounds of the 1980s with the fiery fueled power metal sounds that continue into the present. The current lineup has remained consistent since 2016 thus giving these musicians a few years to learn the subtle intricacies of working in tandem and this current album finds a satisfying fruition in such endeavors.

World War I was one of the darkest moments in human history with a death toll inconceivable by today’s consciousness so the subject matter alone takes this power metal band into some of the darkest subject matter that the metal universe has to offer. Usually reserved for death and black metal, SABATON retains the musical flair of bands like Helloween and Vicious Rumors but take the lyrical delivery into the darkest recesses of the human experience and all the better for it since power metal can easily cross the line into cheesy anthems of silliness but that has never been the case for SABATON and even though the music is commercial sounding in nature, it is tastefully constructed and therefore transcends the barriers of purely popularity and adds relevant thought provoking narratives to its music. Sweden seems to be an advanced culture that can move an entire population into these paradigms unlike, umm, my homeland of the USA which seems splintered and shattered in many ways,

SABATON has developed a rough around the edges grittiness to its brand of power metal. Vocalist Jaokim Brodén for example may belt out those same cliche anthems that power metal is so famous for but his vocal style is on the more grizzled side of the equation and offers a bitter oft sanguine tone to the happy-go-lucky power metal style. What i love about the SABATON style on these newer albums is the contrast. Juxtaposing the bleak subject matter of war with the gleeful major chord constructs of power metal bliss is quite a mind fuck really. This is a band that has weathered the storms and remained relevant for a good reason. They simply know what the fuck they are doing. Sure i love experimental music probably more than most but i have to admit that a band that studies its craft and does it well is a force to contend with indeed and just because a band is popular is by no means a reason to dismiss them by any means. THE WAR TO END ALL WARS is an excellent second chapter to this saga for sure.