Album Review: Sabaton - The Great War

When Sabaton announced that their ninth album would be based on World War I, I wasn’t sure if they’d be able to pull it off. Mind you, this was not in the sense that they wouldn’t know what they were talking about. On the contrary, the band puts a lot of effort in deciding topics and making sure their lyrics are historically accurate. My concerns were more based on how they deliver their message; the War to End All Wars was a grievous conflict that had no clear winner and saw extensive suffering for all sides involved. Bands like 1914 and even Iron Maiden understand this, but I was worried that Sabaton’s general “triumph over adversity” attitude could clash with or even cheapen the gravity of their chosen theme.

To Sabaton’s credit, The Great War is one of the band’s darkest albums in quite some time. It doesn’t exactly wallow in the depths of despair, but the atmosphere is decidedly somber throughout as songs like “The Attack of the Dead Men” and the title track put a particular haunting twist on some of their hooks. One can still detect that feeling of heroically charging into battle but even some of the upbeat tracks like “Fields of Verdun” are delivered with an intense urgency that highlights the futility in the attempt to do so.

Of course, there are still plenty of upbeat tracks running about. Tracks like “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” and “82^nd All the Way” are archetypal Sabaton numbers as the signature gravelly vocals deliver valiant choruses over flamboyant guitars, chugging bass, and classic Nightwish-style symphonics, the latter song making for a particularly strong highlight. “The Red Baron” is the biggest curveball in this regard, channeling Uriah Heep in its prominent organ and “Easy Livin’” shuffle. I suppose dogfighting can still be seen through a romanticized lens in contrast to the ghastly vision of life in the trenches.

But while The Great War is easily Sabaton’s most epic sounding album since 2012’s Carolus Rex, part of me feels like they could’ve taken it even further. Songs like “The Future of Warfare” and the garbled “The End of the War to End All Wars” certainly show off a heightened scale, but they still keep to fairly conservative three to four-minute runtimes. I would’ve loved to see a longer song or two with swelling transitions and more climactic transitions, but such a hope is about as feasible as expecting to reach the other side of No Man’s Land.

I can’t expect Sabaton to pull out an equivalent to Iron Maiden’s “Paschendale,” but The Great War does a good job of reconciling grim themes with Sabaton’s tried and true formula. The concept doesn’t feel tacked on as it had on The Art of War and the individual songs are more effective than those on The Last Stand, which is enough to dispel most of my worries of mood whiplash. There are better avenues if you want to explore a dead serious take on the subject matter, but this album is a respectable take that is easily in the top half of the Sabaton discography.

Highlights:
“82^nd All the Way”
“The Attack of the Dead Men”

“The Red Baron”
“Great War”
“Fields of Verdun”

Final Grade: B+

A Look Back: Black Sabbath - Master of Reality

As a millennial, I’ve had more than one friend question if 70s Black Sabbath is actually “metal” by modern standards. Such a concept is obvious heresy but makes some sense if you squint hard enough at it. Omnipresent radio rock staples aside, the band operated outside of heavy metal conventions as often as they were inventing them. Their first two albums are basically dark blues records, the run from Volume 4 to Sabotage might as well be prog rock, and their last two with Ozzy aren’t heavy by any stretch of the imagination. But all things considered, Master of Reality is enough proof that Black Sabbath was always at their core a heavy metal band.

Despite whatever protometal relic you can pull out of your ass, nothing was heavier than Master of Reality in 1971. Tony Iommi’s guitar tone was enough to set that distinction. Black Sabbath’s prior albums had a decidedly ominous atmosphere but his decision to downtune with Geezer’s bass following suit took that sense of impending doom to unprecedented levels. It’s organic enough to not sound out of place in the 70s rock climate but still has enough grime to be just as earthshaking as your modern stoner/sludge metal fare. Groups like MC5 may have been rowdier and more aggressive, but this album still sounds like the goddamned apocalypse.

The band also seemed to be tighter as a unit with a much more focused vision. The Sab Four always had fantastic chemistry but the structures on this album are more fully realized than anything that had come before. Nothing on Paranoid could’ve ever reached the speeds of the charging “Children of the Grave” and while the tempo shifts on songs like “Sweet Leaf” and “Into the Void” are nothing new, they were never this purposeful. The band was clearly done meandering around and not a single second is wasted, effectively bridging the gap from the psych blues jams of “Warning” and “N.I.B.” to the elaborate journeys of “Megalomania” and “Wheels of Confusion.”

Of course, the album’s stellar songwriting is what truly drives everybody and their father to imitate it so much. Whether you’re looking at the “Lord of this World” doom chugs, the proto-power metal “After Forever,” or the ambient “Solitude,” every song has a legendary status with influences heard in multiple demographics. But in contrast to Paranoid’s overplayed nature, these songs are actively sought out and seemingly spread in a much more organic fashion. Everybody in the underground knows “Sweet Leaf” and “Children of the Grave” but is anybody as sick of them as they are of “War Pigs” and “Iron Man?”

Master of Reality is a perfect album by every standard. It shows Sabbath at their best as musicians and songwriters while setting an insanely high bar for all other heavy metal acts to follow. Some could deem the album too short, especially with two of eight songs being short interludes, but anything more would just be superfluous. The individual songs are all complete and the short overall length feels like a challenge for anybody who would follow in their footsteps. I can only imagine how cataclysmic this thing sounded back in ’71 but with how timeless it sounds, you don’t have to come at it from that angle to fully appreciate it.

Highlights:
“Children of the Grave”
“Lord of This World”
“Solitude”
“Into the Void”

Final Grade: A+