The Art of War

Sun Tzu says: The Art of War is of vital importance to Sabaton. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin.

Actually, no, scratch that. The Art of War is a road both to safety AND to ruin. Safety because all the songs here are very accesible, catchy and by the book. Ruin because the originality is approaching negative levels...

So, what is good and safe on this album? Like I said before, all songs are polished and done in the typical 'epic' power metal way - they're either fast rockers with lots of double bass drumming and constant barrages of riffs, such as the opening Ghost Division, 40:1, Talvisota and Firestorm or they're slower, grim 'power ballad-likes', such as Cliffs of Gallipoli or The Price of a Mile. All of them are also accompanied by Joakim Broden's strong and soaring vocals, which are again a solid feature, just like with the Swedes' previous albums. The production is crystal-clear and all instruments can be heard properly.

Another pretty neat aspect is the 'glorious' feel most of the songs have. Union, Cliffs of Gallipoli and Price of a Mile come to mind immediately. It's mostly achieved through clever use of keyboards giving the songs a nearly sacral atmosphere, and Broden's layered vocals which gives the impression of a whole choir of Brodens (especially in Union, which really makes you want to grab a gun and run off to the nearest hill so you can fly a flag there and pretend it's Monte Cassino, while the galloping guitars, which I think are exclusive to this track, only help). The 'choir of Brodens' effect is also used nicely in Panzerkampf, where it was obviously the band's goal to achieve something akin to a Russian army choir.

It is also amazing how Sabaton managed to create such a sorrowful atmosphere in Cliffs and Price of a Mile. The first song's theme is the Gallipoli Campaign during World War I, which was generally a giant slaughterhouse. The pace is kept very slow throughout the song, the grim lyrics are heavily influenced by Kemal Atatürk's words inscribed upon the ANZAC memorial and along goes an interesting piano-immitating keyboard melody (although at the start it sounds awkwardly jolly). Price of a Mile is also WWI related, as it describes the desperation and hopelessness of soldiers cowering in trenches. The lyrics here are also interesting, as they portray a 'before and after' comparison of the situation on the front. The instrumentation during the verses is kept to a minimum, with some single drum sounds, a very good bass line and a subtle choral sound that goes on through the whole song, but is lost a bit during the bridge and chorus when the riffs kick in.

Safety has been assessed, what brings ruin to this album then? For starters, the interludes and the excerpts from Sun Tzu's Art of War that begin each song. They're read by some woman's voice with a complete lack of any characteristics. It's just like taking some random person off the street, handing her the script and saying 'hey, read this!'. Sorry Sabaton, but you're not Rhapsody, they could at least afford Christopher Lee to do the role of the narrator which, admittedly, might have sounded horribly cheesy, but at least it sounded *somehow*. The track Nature of Warfare consists only of the narrator yapping about some unrelated things and some random and weird keyboard sounds. Absolutely useless and redundant. The album also ends with a spoken part... and a robot voice saying 'illegal download detected' (HOHOHO, clever) afterwards. That's bottom of the barrel anticlimatic, especially after the speedy Firestorm.

What is more, the 'by the book' approach is also a bit glaring. Almost all the songs stick to one formula and drive it to the end. The only exceptions are Unbreakable which starts slow but ends fast, and 40:1 which has a breakdown somewhere in the middle, with a female choir thrown in for good measure.

And finally comes the originality... Well, if you approach this record expecting Sabaton, you'll get Sabaton, alright. Some might be disappointed by the lack of evolution or experimentation, but personally, I don't really give that much of a damn. What I give a damn about, though, is the level of plagiarism this album has. Let's face it - Sabaton has never been the most original band in the scene, but let's say that their previous albums were only 'influenced' by the works of others. Primo Victoria might have had Purple Heart which was strangely similar to Battlelore's Sons of Riddermark, but that was just it. Attero Dominatus was pretty much a carbon copy of Primo Victoria, but at least they had the decency to copy themselves. But Art of War is just spectacularly blatant in its copying. Compare Unbreakable and Black Sabbath's A National Acrobat. Then compare Cliffs of Gallipoli with Savatage's Gutter Ballet. Afterwards, you can compare Panzerkampf with Skyclad's Disenchanted Forest. And finally, you can check how Firestorm compares to Gamma Ray's Wings of Destiny. That's four out of ten tracks if you don't count the spoken interludes - nearly half of the material here is simply stolen, and I don't know about you, but I don't believe in coincidences, especially when they're as numerous as this. Not to mention that these are only the tracks I managed to 'fish out', who knows what other 'influences' lie within?

Final verdict? Beats the hell out of me. If not for the blatant plagiarism, I'd probably give it somewhere around 75 - a solid and entertaining, if unoriginal, power metal album. But goddammit, if there's one thing that annoys me about, well, anything, it's covering your lack of creative inspiration with someone else's ideas, and I think the 60 I give still is too generous, but whatever. I can't deny that I still like this album and listen to it frequently even despite the shortcomings.