The Art of War

After Primo Victoria and Attero Dominatus, Sabaton changed their sound a little. Where at first they had been mostly power metal, some traces of heavy metal had been seeping into the music, resulting in a sound that’s still melodic but harder and heavier now. You could say that the music has “matured” a little bit. The result is going to be in your possession if you’re a Sabaton fan and if you didn’t have this album yet.

“The Art of War” is a book by ancient Chinese warlord Sun Tzu, a book that is still used in military educations (that’s what I heard, at least) so it was a matter of time before a band focusing on warfare finally made an album out of it. Enter Sabaton, quickly grown from an unknown band to a one with a considerable number of fans after their first two (plus one) albums. They took Sun Tzu’s words and used them as a base for their next album, another rollercoaster ride through the realms of heavy metal. The idea is that several of the concepts within the book are linked with battles that have happened at some point, except for the title song. In the booklet, each song is preceded by its title, the title of a chapter in the book and short introduction of the event.

So The Art of War is a concept album, and with concept album often come intros and outros as well as an interlude (The Nature of Warfare). These are all narrated parts of texts, presumably taken from the book. When they’re integrated in a song, these spoken parts are short enough, only a few lines of text related to the lyrical content of the song. The standalone parts are longer, but those you can skip if you have the need to do so.

The real songs are what you expect them to be: a good pace, straightforward, Joakim’s harsh voice, catchy. There is enough diversity as you can hear for yourself: compare the straight-in-your-face opener Ghost Division, with its high tempo and bass driven verses versus the lamenting (yet not soft) Cliffs of Gallipoli> which relies on its melodies created by the keyboards. The Art of War, a slow and crushing song: the pace is slowed down but sounds very “big”. This is due to the keys, and the chorus that will you shout “Hey! Hey! Hey!” to the music before you realize it. Compare this with the much faster 40:1, where all the instruments are stuck in a higher gear.

The band doesn’t offer anything really new here, if you know and like Sabaton’s other albums you’re likely to like this one as well. Anything you liked about the band is still here: the typical vocals, the lyrics, the straightforward music. What has changed is that the pace can be slower than before, but this is combined by a heavier sound, coming from the emphasis on the harsh vocals. The production also has changed, so that the music sounds fuller and bigger. If there is anything bad to say about the album is that my favourite songs are located in the first half: Ghost Division, the titlesong and Cliffs of Gallipoli. But the second half also has to offer some nice stuff: Panzerkampf which lies rather close to the titlesong in sound (slow but heavy) or Union which some really positive and victorious feel to it, for example.

The Art of War is a great album for old fans of the band as well as newcomers. Buy this one, for sure! And for those who own Coat of Arms; the lyrical predecessors to The White Death and Uprising can be found here!