The Last Stand

At the time of writing this review (2024), Sabaton are celebrating their 25 year anniversary. They are doing this by dedicating one month to each of their albums, and August was The Last Stand month. Let's join in.

The Last Stand was released in 2016 and is the second post-split record. In many, many way The Last Stand is similar to its immediate predecessor Heroes. A collection of ten songs, all remarkably short and close to the same runtime. Some songs offer new ideas, most borrow from older stuff. Even today I had someone tell me: “You’ve heard one album, you’ve heard them all” - I can understand where that came from. The concept is broad enough for the lyrics to have an overlapping theme while telling wildly differing stories. And lastly: The Last Stand is not peak Sabaton but good fun.

As mentioned above and in my earlier review for Heroes, this record has shorr songs. I looked at the lengths and fed them to my computer. For The Last Stand specifically, the mean song length is 3:35 with a standard deviation of 0:24. These are a smaller average runtime and a smaller standard deviation, meaning the songs here are even shorter than on Heroes. A pity, because some tracks could benefit from a longer runtime to explore where ideas or riffs might lead the band.

One of the things I find most typical of Sabaton’s post-split records is that there are a lot of songs that are reminiscent of older tracks. They borrow melodies, atmosphere, approach, … And there are a few standout songs, where the Swedes do something daring and new. When compiling a best-of list, these would be the songs that go into that list.

Those standout tracks here are Blood of Bannockburn, The Lost Battalion, Shiroyama. Bannockburn is upbeat with bagpipes, The Lost Battalion used artillery sounds in sampled drums, and Shiroyama proves the naysayers true: Sabaton is Eurovision Song Contest material.

What else can you expect from The Last Stand? It is a very safe album, a comfort record if you will. The new stuff is there but snuggles tightly with the old and known. Two of the best tracks on here, Seven Pillars of Wisdom and Winged Hussars, are so reminiscent of White Death (Coat of Arms, 2010) and The Art of War (The Art of War, 2008) respectively that even a veteran such as myself needs to think twice before telling what song we’re hearing.

Sabaton knows what works and makes sure to give the fans what they want. Last Dying Breath, Hill 3234, Rorke’s Drift and The Last Battle all build on something we have heard before. That’s very okay with me, let there be comfort in metal once in a while. The genre is grimm enough as it is.

But… as is the case with all post-split records, there are also things I absolutely don’t like and skip whenever I come across them. Here it is the bizarre title track. It is Sabaton™ and yet I deeply despise it. It is too happy for what it tells (the sack of Rome in 1527). Very bouncy song, fluffy almost and with low effort rhymes:

“salvation - dedication - capitulation - annihilation - commendation - reincarnation - destination”

Not a fan. I can’t for the life of me understand how this has become their second most popular song (158 million plays on Spotify). And I say this as a devout lover of their music. I think it is because here we get a glimpse of what is to come on The Great War: lyrics so over the top they’re not enjoyable anymore, melodies and sounds that are too formulaic, and the feeling that something better could have been.

To wrap it all up: The Last Stand is Sabaton through and through. A few surprises and lots of familiarity to it. You may be a bit surprised by the clunky opener but after that you’ll feel at home again. If you didn’t like them before, you won’t like them now. I did find lots of enjoyment and feel it is very closely related to its older brother Heroes. Not as great or adventurous as the first records, The Last Stand is not the last of this band.

(On mean and standard deviation: the mean is the average length of a song on an album, simply the total album length divided by the number of tracks. The standard deviation shows how much the actual song lengths differ from the mean. A higher standard deviation means there are tracks that are notably longer or shorter than the mean.)

So Sabaton is a pretty contentious topic ever since the history nerds and internet memers found them. Hell, I myself am guilty of discovering them like this but to be fair I was and still am, a huge Maiden fan. So I wouldn't say Sabaton got me into metal, but into power metal. Well, more like pointed me towards the direction of what turned out to be much better bands, but I still have a fond spot for their older material.

On their previous album, “Heroes”, the band actually sounded unaffected by the fact that the most of the old members left. Frankly, it actually gave hope to the fans, and I do mean fans here, not fanboys who post Sabaton memes online while only exposure to the band they have be the same old top 10 Sabaton songs and then call themselves a fan and Sabaton greatest metal band ever because history theme, even if they are not the best in their lyrical thematic or subgenre, let alone the entire genre. Okay I digressed a little, but you get my point. More dedicated fans who listened to entire albums and not just hit singles were optimistic that the very next record was at the very least going to be decent.

Now, before I tear a new one on this record, I have to be fair and point out, if the score already didn’t tell, that there is actually some amount of good on this. Mostly on the less popular songs. The opener “Sparta” packs nothing short but raw power. The synth is a little bit too much, but compared to the rest of the tracks here, it’s a non-issue. The relatively carm verse before chorus explodes into shouts of “Sparta! Heilas!” and those chants post chorus makes this actually fun to listen to and puts hope that it was going to be good. Hell, even I got baited. “Blood of Bannockburn” is actually a fun and catchy rocker and even features some bagpipes backing it up. “Hill 3234” and “Rorke’s Drift” are only two guitar driven songs here and both feature some really catchy and energetic leads. And surprisingly, the bonus track, “Camouflage” is a really good one. It really fits Sabaton like a good old shoe and I even prefer it to the original simply because it’s more energetic. The last bright spot is “Winged Hussars” which got quite a memetic reputation on the internet. A shame really because the chorus is genuinely fun to sing along to and synths and guitars work together like on the older albums instead of synths usurping the lead melody.

Unfortunately, my praises end here. Now it’s time for the ugly part. Funnily enough my problem with this record isn’t stuff like “too cheesy” or something truly awful like the infamous “St. Anger”. It’s just that majority of the stuff here is forgettable. It’s something you would put on as a background music on work or play it around your friends who aren’t into metal. It’s not offensively bad, just bland and forgettable. Take for example “Last Dying Breath”. Too much synth for it’s own good and a generically catchy melody that you will forget by the time next song comes around. “The Lost Battalion” barely qualifies as a metal song. This is very much a prototype for the pure synth abomination “Soldier of Heaven” on the latest album. Once again, it has a generically catchy synth melody and a generically catchy chorus you will forget by the time next song comes around. By the time you finish this record, you won’t be hating it, you won’t be loving it, bar maybe two to three songs. To be honest, you will be probably be left thinking how the hell you remember so little. It’s very much a shame to be honest. Sabaton used to be good, even great at times, regardless of what revisionists, contrarians and haters might say. They could truly put out amazing stuff like “Art of War” or “Carolus Rex”. Now one might call me a hypocrite because those albums had synths too or you can point out the fact that I’m a Stratovarius fan. But here’s the catch. Tracks like “Ghost Division” or “Art of War” had guitars and synths playing off of each other to create a truly epic and powerful sound that established Sabaton as a quality band. On “The Last Stand” it’s mostly synth dominance and on some tracks there’s barely any guitars.

Honestly, if you have to pick a modern Sabaton album, go with “The Great War”, not this. At least that one has occasional flashes of greatness and has a more memorable songwriting. But frankly, that one was still just a last gasp of creativity. You are much better off just picking up “Art of War” or “Carolus Rex”. Hell, “Metalizer” is rarely talked about and is very much their best album along with the previously mentioned two. Don’t buy this one except if you manage to find it on sale.

What have we come to, that I am reviewing a recent Sabaton release? Since The Art Of War, I have been routinely critical of the band’s one-dimensional, frequently self-derivative songwriting approach, its elementary school-level capabilities around quasi-historical lyric writing, and general marginalizing of many of the things I love about my favorite subgenre of music. I generally dismiss every Sabaton album as undeniably catchy, but not worthy of purchase and too insubstantial to occupy me for more than a very occasional spin. Really, by all rights, I ought to be here delivering a pretty lukewarm review, but after purchasing The Last Stand (the special edition, no less) at full price and adding it to a shelf that, with raised eyebrows, I realized was much more full of the Swedes’ work than I’d thought, I have to admit that I’m still at least something of a Sabaton fan, and The Last Stand is probably the best example of why since The Art Of War.

Since I’m finally reviewing a Sabaton release, please forgive me a little bit of time to thoroughly – and publicly – address and critique the band’s lyrical approach. Put frankly, those taken with Sabaton’s “historicity” and impressed with its depth are the sorts whose idea of “being interested in history” is only equal to the task of watching a World War II documentary if nothing else is on TV and/or playing Company of Heroes. Anyone with any kind of background or interest in military history (I can personally claim some small knowledge of the Second World War, the Napoleonic War, and the Jacobite Uprising – all subjects of Sabaton songs) is swift to point out the frequent lack of any real detail, specific/accurate terminology, or anything more than a surface-level comprehension of events. Indeed, many of Sabaton’s songs are so vague or watered down that replacing a couple of proper nouns could convince at least 75% of Sabaton’s audience that the song is a perfect description of a radically different event in a vastly different geographic location. I digress, however, because I don’t think the band itself has ever claimed to be an expert on these subjects – that’s a falsehood perpetuated more by the band’s label and fanbase – they just like to write songs associated (however loosely) with historical conflicts.

ALL RIGHT, with that out of the way, and in spite of it, The Last Stand is an extremely energetic and listenable album that follows up perfectly on expectations set by Sabaton’s legacy: short, hooky songs laden with pumped-up choruses and a heavy dose of keyboard (more than the last couple of albums, to my ears). Joakim Brodén, no matter how you feel about his voice, is possibly the most instantly recognizable voice in power metal at this point, and he leads Sabaton in a rush through a series of uncomplicated, sing-along anthems with lyrics geared toward easy memorization and crowd chanting. This band does after all command an extremely energizing live presence, and just keeps adding to its catalog of live favorites with such memorable tunes as opener “Sparta” and the stomping tread of the title track.

Despite my rant concerning lyrics, I am extremely pleased by the inclusion of “Blood of Bannockburn”, a vague but musically delightful anthem named for a key battle in the first Scottish war of independence. Its opening, featuring a simplified aping of Scottish martial pipe and drum, is nonetheless ideally suited to capture my attention. It doesn’t hurt that the whole song is consistently fast-moving and catchy as all get out. “Shiroyama”, released as a single, is another one-off song, thematically, this time concerned with the climactic battle of the Satsuma Rebellion. I don’t know my Japanese history, but I recognize an earworm chorus when I hear one. “Rorke’s Drift” and “Winged Hussars” help round out the complete hookfest that this album represents, as well as continue spreading the historical references around. I suppose it could be said at least that Sabaton perhaps leads listeners to research these events with their numerous references, even if they do so in a much less graceful and immersive manner than say, Serenity or Thy Majestie.

I find the cover artwork of The Last Stand to be interesting, what with the title track’s preoccupation with the famous Stand of the Swiss Guard and the phrase “the last stand” being used again in the chorus of “Shiroyama”. I suppose that like many of the band’s themes, the title was so nebulously and generally war-related that they reckoned they could just paste another WWII image in the foreground and no one would notice that it clashed with where the eponymous phrase appeared on the album (I did). What would have been cooler (and a lot more novel) is a Swiss pikeman front and center. Oh well. Points for the samurai behind the GI who’s about to do him in. What I don’t find curious is the stage-burning cover of “All Guns Blazing”, which is one of the best I’ve ever heard, even with Brodén’s decidedly un-Halford-like vocals fronting much of the song. There’s also a respectable cover of Stan Ridgway’s “Camouflage” on the limited digipak. Even without the bonus DVD, these make that version of the release a necessity.

While it doesn’t have some of the more exploratory tracks of Sabaton’s past and is solely focused on getting in, delivering a big chorus, and getting out, The Last Stand delivers a trench knife to the face with the most consistently excellent tracklist since Carolus Rex. This makes it a natural, superior successor to Heroes, publicly exclaiming that while we ought not ever expect new things out of these very well-trained GI Joe fans, there’s a bloody good reason that they’ve established the fanbase they have amongst power metal’s chorus-crazed, concert-attending fanfolk. While I speak plainly about my issues with this band, I’m pretty pleased with this album, and I don’t really understand the massive shelling it seems to have earned online. Others were expecting maybe…not Sabaton? Fools. Give them a tide of Swedish iron.

Originally written for Black Wind Metal

To be honest, when I first heard this album, I believed it was a worthy addition to Sabaton's wonderful discography. However, after I gave the album a few more listens, I realized that is was an extremely bland, monotonous album which recycled ideas from their previous releases. Even the concept of the album, being about "last stands", won't save it from mediocrity.

My two big problems with the album boil down to two things: The production and the songwriting. When the sound of the song "Sparta" first graced my ears, I could tell that the production of the album was pretty bad. The vocals sound very overdubbed, and it just makes them generally unenjoyable. The guitars are kind of muddy in the mix, making them very hard to distinguish clearly. The synths are way too loud, overshadowing even the vocals at times. I really have no problem with the drums, other than it occasionally gets too difficult to hear the cymbals. Overall, the production really hurts the album.

The other glaring problem is the songwriting. Like a lot of bands, Sabaton relies heavily on the verse-chorus structure. If a band does it right, there is no problem. Of course, Sabaton did it wrong on this album simply because they've used it so much, it's already been heard on their previous releases. Every song on the album, besides maybe "The Blood of Bannockburn", is just inferior to every song from their prior albums. They are all mid or slow paced; They all have the same song structure as well. "The Blood of Bannockburn" was really the only song to add anything new, with the bagpipes and being written in a major scale. I know "The Lost Battalion" has guns as drums, but it doesn't help the songwriting. The bonus song "Camouflage" is quite good, but the Judas Priest cover "All Guns Blazing" just really sucks.

The best thing I got off of this album was the bonus DVD, which came with the special edition. It is actually quite enjoyable, and it will get many replays from me, unlike the actual album. I must admit that I still like listening to this album, but it still is a mediocre, bland album, at least compared to Sabaton's other albums.

Good Songs: The Blood of Bannockburn, The Last Stand, Winged Hussars

Meh Songs: Last Dying Breath, The Lost Battalion, Shiroyama, The Last Battle, Shiroyama

Bad Songs: Sparta, Hill 3234, Rorke's Drift

I’m rather new to Sabaton, having only ‘discovered’ them perhaps a year ago. I actively avoided them for some reason- I didn’t like their album covers- a pretty lame reason for dismissing them and this dismissal was much to my own musical detriment because they are a great band and The Last Stand is a great album. I gave them a shot with Primo Victoria and was most pleasantly surprised, going on to purchase most of their discography.

Recorded by the mighty Peter Tagtren in the Abyss studios, The Last Stand is, of course, perfectly produced; all instruments are clear, the drums are powerful and clean, guitars (which are certainly not the main focus for Sabaton) are crisp and heavy but seem to merge with the drums a bit too much, the synths are piercing and clear and avoid clashing with the top end. I can see how this heavily compressed and synth-heavy sound, with extreme quantisation and de-emphasised guitars could irritate purists but I think it works for the modern, melodic metal style of Sabaton. But, anyone who has heard “Nuclear Blast” will probably know what type of production to expect. I do find that playing this album at high volumes is very fatiguing for the ears; after a while, the album sounds almost distorted and I feel the need to turn it off, but it’s a short album so I usually make it through. I will say that wall-of-sound and brickwalling are actually suited to Sabaton's style but this doesn't change the fact that the production makes the album tiring after a while.

For me, the main focus is the brilliant, throaty vocals of Joakim; this guy has a unique voice in power metal, opting for a deeper and more “aggro” style in contrast to the typical power metal wail. This style fits the intensity and gravity of the music perfectly; he’s one of my favourite metal vocalists. His performance here is fantastic and powerful, imposing and dramatic, almost imperious at times. He does not have a vast range, having maybe two octaves that he utterly dominates; I’m not sure if it’s him of someone else that does the high falsetto wail in Metal Crue off Attero Dominatus, but chucking a few of those in here and there could add some further points of interest. But, I digress, because I generally love this guy’s vocals. Though, I am an unashamed cynic and generally negative person; it’s fucking easy, almost instinctive, for me to find things to shit on in art I love or dig- how about the faint blurry distortion added to Joakim’s vocals when Peter decides to lay on a bit of auto-tune? Yeah, fuck that. Broden’s voice is surprisingly straight and controlled; from what I’ve heard of him live, he can hold a note, and there is no reason that a bit of pitch fluttering should be seen as unacceptable; this is metal, it’s not really meant to be perfect. I cannot see why a few more takes weren’t suggested rather than simply ‘fixing errors’ in post-production. Time, money? Anyway, his vocals are always good and they are certainly good on The Last Stand, auto-tuning aside.

I won’t do a song by song analysis, but will mention a few tracks specifically. The album starts powerfully and unusually, with the slow and heavy Sparta, featuring a great synth lead melody and a warlike chant- a slightly overused chant I must add (OOH-AH!; OOH-AH!) but appropriate for this track. I should also add that there is a bit of staleness and tiredness associated with the use of Sparta as a lyrical theme (hey Firewind!) but, fear not, this isn’t the historical Sparta but is instead the hyper-surreal, sweaty-sculpted-flesh-and-bulging-abs version presented in the film “300”. Of course it is. Anyway, blast this tune at high volume with lots of sub-bass and I challenge you to say still.

After Sparta, we are then treated to the usual Sabaton style with Last Dying Breath, a somewhat fast, almost dancey beat emphasised by the ‘four-to-the-floor’ kick drum that Sabaton regularly employ. The first track was almost an introduction to this song. Following this we have a sequence of quite varied tracks; Blood of Bannockburn with its jovial, Scottish-feel melody, again featuring that 80’s style synth overlaid with bagpipes (I assume); The Lost Battalion, an unusual and different track for Sabaton with its beat composed by sampling/processing various battle sounds (machine guns as snare, explosions as kick, some sort of gun as the hi-hat); Rorke’s Drift being more typically power metal with a beat of flowing streams of double bass and lead ‘trumpets’; title track The Last Stand slowing it down a bit but retaining the grapefruit-clenching, and Shiroyama with its epic lead melody and fantastic, fist-pumping chorus.

The album art is atmospheric and fits the content, with the album cover featuring a stylised soldier charging to war and the booklet depicting relevant scenes of battle. It is in the typical, ‘cartoonish’ style Sabaton often use, which was the major reason for my unfounded bias against the band (a reason which gets more cringe-worthy the more I repeat it). Each track is accompanied by a brief written history lesson- something I care little for, but it does show a certain ‘depth’ to their song-writing, or attempts to because the music tells a slightly different story. A story well written but slightly simplistic. I dunno, is simplicity a bad thing? I’ve come to think that it isn’t but each listener is different.

My main criticism of The Last Stand resides with the shortness of the tracks. This makes them feel a bit throwaway at times and this is not helped by the lyrics, which clearly have both a crumb of thought and research behind them (Wikipedia?), as well as a real laziness in the way verses or lines are repeated in rather arbitrary ways. It doesn’t bother me too much, but I get the idea that Broden doesn’t put a massive amount of effort into writing lyrics or music. Either way, the tracks he and the band have come up with for this album are great for what they are. I’ve been listening to the album on and off for the last 6 months and am not bored of it yet, which is indeed high praise. It is an album I often put on when cleaning or doing housework; perfect music to motivate the recalcitrant lazy fucker that I am.

All the tracks have moments that are brilliant and engaging, either brief solos or a sojourn into an uplifting but all too brief melody (such as that found in The Last Breath preceding the final chorus) though a few tracks really stand out. For me, they are Sparta, Last Dying Breath, Shiroyama and The Last Battle, all of which are simple but powerful and kinda unique for power metal in my experience. Whilst Blood of Bannockburn is interesting and clever in some respects, it is my least preferred track from the album.

Yeah, The Last Stand is not really different to Heroes or anything in Sabaton’s discography and there are certainly bands doing similar things (such as Powerwolf or Bloodbound), but it’s great for what it is: simple, powerful, melodic, energetic and uplifting fucking metal, done well. I don’t see why the band needs to break new ground with each album, or why their record label matters (or why I mentioned it?!); hell, fucking Vader is on Nuclear Blast and they certainly aren’t making accessible or commercial music. The Last Stand is not my favourite Sabaton album- that would be Attero Dominatus (shit, or Primo Victoria, hmm) - but it’s up there. I give it 80/100; points given for being generally kick ass with strong opening tracks and a relatively consistent series of songs, with points lost for the sometimes lazy lyrics, simplistic song structures and generally low-key musicianship, overpowering production and the use of auto-tune; I understand that some of these elements are basically Sabaton, so I can accept that they probably won’t change on their next album; and- you know what- I can live with that.

Keep up the destruction Sabaton!

I'm ever so sorry to disparage those who were apparently under the impression that this album was composed by Mahler himself, and we were to expect an hour-long symphony detailing the meaning of life. For goodness sake, this is Sabaton! They write 3-4 minute bombastic power metal anthems that are catchier than the plague and give you a full-on military history lecture. The Swedes never pretend to be something they're not. New output "The Last Stand", whilst it could easily be branded as 'samey', is at least coherent, true to form, and full of power metal hymns that are as fun as they are moving.

You have to give Sabaton credit for one thing: their albums are consistently semi-concept. "The Art of War" was based on Sun Tzu's ancient book; "Carolus Rex" was the rise and fall of the Swedish empire; "Heroes" was a collection of stories about individual heroes of WWII; and now comes "The Last Stand" - true tales of armies who fought to the last man in the face of grim odds. Some of these yarns stick out more than others, due to the sheer emotional punch they pack - but they are the perfect lyrical setting for the sonorous hymns of Sabaton.

Kicking off proceedings is probably the most famous last stand of all time; the 300 Spartans who took down thousands of Persians at the battle of Thermopylae. The martial rhythms and slow tempo of "Sparta" make it an odd choice for an opening track - but the shouts in the chorus bring the whole affair to life in a refreshingly aggressive way. As expected: the production is crisp, polished and almost grandiose. Perhaps there could be less of a synth present, and more of an authentic string sound, but the quintet definitely make best use of the classic 80s square-wave sound throughout the whole album.

As is the case with every Sabaton album, each song is really a build-up to its own chorus. Joakim and co. are capable of writing the catchiest choruses on Earth - and "The Last Stand" does not disappoint. The title-track and "Shiroyama" stand out in particular. The choral vocals are exquisite and reflect the desperate courage of their respective stories perfectly. This album really shines when the speed picks up, such as on "Rorke's Drift" and "Hill 3234". These tracks will dispel any qualms that Sabaton have drifted from their glory days.

Joakim Broden is, as usual, in total command here. His gruff yet emotive tones are a steadfast of the metal community. Having guested on albums by both Wisdom and Twilight Force this year, he's proven to be a charismatic figure with a natural flair for his chosen style.

Some moments on this album phone in the quality a little. "The Lost Battalion", with its industrial backbeats is a jarring change of style. Though the close harmonies in the chorus are strong, the overall mood is unpleasant and sluggish. A shame, considering its prelude, "Diary of an Unknown Soldier" is creepily effective. Their tribute to the Scottish army of 1314 in "Blood of Bannockburn" is also devoid of much substance as it flies by in a flash. The bagpipes are at least a nice touch.

I don't feel any of the songs require more explanation. If you know anything about the inexorable tank that is Sabaton, you should know exactly what to expect. Broden and co. can keep on grinding away like this for decades, and I will happily lap it up. Catchy, heavy, synth-laden, bombastic - but most importantly - respectful and emotional in the way it deals with the subject matter. "The Last Stand" is another bullet in Sabaton's reliable magazine. See you on tour!

"For the grace, for the might of our lord!
For the home of the holy!
For the faith, for the way of the sword,
Gave their lives so boldly...

Do you know what ‘avant-garde black metal’ defines? What about ‘symphonic gothic metal’? With so many subgenres cropping up that dictates how a band should or should not sound like within heavy metal, one of the few genres that still retains its original implication is ‘power metal’. The clue is in the title- its music that is supposed to make you feel powerful and larger than life, uplifting music that unashamedly makes you swell up in pride, don your helm and ride into glory against all odds!

Sweden’s Sabaton belong to the power metal subgenre and in their near 17 year career, they’ve amassed a strong army of loyal fans with 8 albums to their name. Their latest conceptual album, “The Last Stand”, encapsulates everything about the subgenre they belong to. From the grandiose atmosphere and realistic lyricism that Sabaton create, they lead us to the barefaced supercilious façade that all power metal bands wear through a brief history of “famous last stands in warfare”.

Sabaton are a distinguishable band due to their focus on real warfare rather than fantasy, and their noticeable sound is just as evident as their debut was back in 2005. Each track on “The Last Stand” has its own personal punch but the marching riffs from ’Last Dying Breath’ and the turbulent ‘Rorke’s Drift’ announce that Sabaton are still using their strengths to their advantage.

However, Sabaton have drawn new battle tactics and enlisted a small array of other influences on this album since its predecessor, “Heroes”. Bombast and pomposity spew out from “The Last Stand” because glam is the most prominent weapon that they equip themselves with; but with it come both benefits and drawbacks. ‘The Last Battle’ is arguably the catchiest and most triumphant song on the album due to the simple, synchronised rhythms each musician plays. And yet, the simplicity of Hannes Van Dahl’s spacious drums and the unenergetic riffing makes ‘The Lost Battalion’ sound so languid.

Joakim Brodén is clearly in charge here. He has excellent talent at creating a clear commanding and fanatical tone to his singing and also at storytelling. In songs like ‘Shiroyama’ and ‘Sparta’ you won’t have to ask Google what battle corresponds to each song because he describes them so effortlessly in these songs particularly. The factual lyrics portray each battle with a creative intent and in a charismatic way. ‘Blood of Bannockburn’ also features suited instrumentation to replicate the lyrical description. In this song Sabaton use bagpipes to emphasise this Scottish battle that proves to be a riveting call-to-arms song. The only negative is that Joakim missed a cheesy opportunity to cry out “FREEDOM!”

Let’s face it, you know exactly what you’re going to get with a new Sabaton record: the most stirring history lesson you’ll ever have complete with a complementary cheese board of bombastic choruses, marching riffs, reflective keyboards and realistic lyrics. “The Last Stand” is no anomaly or curve-ball to this formula. The Swede's continue to gain victory after victory in their career- it’s just a shame that it’s the same kind of battle every time. One day they’ll think to change some tactics and win the war.

Originally written on http://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/71469/Sabaton-The-Last-Stand/

It's a curious thing, an exercise in sameness inspiring a small yet loud backlash in certain circles after more than a decade, but not necessarily any newer than the sound that Sabaton has displayed for their 17 year history without fail nor evolutionary leap. It can get annoying to be treated to that tired cliche of "you either like them or you don't", but in this band's case, it is the best way to sum up their nature as it is highly improbably that one could draw a significant distinction between one album and the next, barring maybe their delayed debut Metalizer which had a different set of lyrical subjects. This is a niche band that cleaves to their niche as if it were holy writ, and the only mystique to it all is why anyone thinks that a "dependable product" necessitates that one feel DPed over the whole thing on the eighth pass. Puns and digressions into audience reactions aside, Sabaton's latest studio excursion The Last Stand continues the tradition with no massive divergences in the established liturgy, and that is by no means an unwelcome eventuality.

To the uninitiated, this is a band that has held to an extremely keyboard oriented and pithy take on power metal, one that is heavily informed by the lighter end of the Helloween spectrum as embodied by a number of Swedish and German acts, with Freedom Call and Dream Evil being the more obvious comparisons. Little has changed since their 2005 debut Primo Victoria save a massive lineup shift and an updated production job with all the latest gimmicks, largely due to this ultimately being Joakim Brodén's baby through and through. That's really the crux of what happens on any Sabaton album, the keyboardist turned front man puts much of the emphasis on keyboards and his admittedly unique gravely take on power metal vocals and leaves just enough room for the rest of the arrangement to keep it from turning into overt fluff comparable to the stereotypical early 2000s Italian sound. The only real outlier relative to previous output is the presence of Thorbjörn Englund, who is put in a compact box when his solos ring out comparable to Sascha Gershner during the early days of Freedom Call, but tears the guitar up in far more a technically impressive Malmsteen-like fashion than his predecessors from Carolus Rex and on back.

Relative to the last album Heroes, this one proves to be slightly more sugary and tame, if only because of a greater proliferation of keyboard drenched fanfare reminiscent of 80s arena rock compared to speed-infused or heavier numbers. The title song "The Last Stand", "Last Dying Breath" and "Winged Hussars" could easily pass for mid 80s Dio or even Dokken with a cleaner/higher voice and a lighter guitar tone, and much of the first half of this album is spent in auspiciously lighter territory than any previous album from this outfit. Things do pick up considerably with the introduction of "Rorke's Drift", which brings a needed dose of Helloween oriented speed to remind us that this is ultimately a power metal album, and "Hill 3234" takes it a step further and provides some Painkiller brand name heaviness to keep the war and death element in place. In total, this album would find itself in about the same territory as the admittedly good if a somewhat overly safe debut album Primo Victoria, but when accounting from the covers found on the digital version of Priest's "All Guns Blazing" (which is done about as faithfully as possible and downplays the keyboards) and Maiden's "Afraid To Shoot Strangers" (which goes heavy on the keyboards and sounds lighter than the original, but captivating none the less), this is up there with Coat Of Arms.

The charge that this album isn't memorable or otherwise bereft of impact is not accurate, though it is plausible that one could have a negative reaction to this relative to past works as it is a more concentrated dose of safeness when broken down song for song. Popularity tends to come with consistency, and the one charge that can't really be laid at this band's doorstep is that they've been pandering to the washed masses. It would be a stretch to call this an out and out great album as it has little sense of stylistic adventure and generally listens like a collection of short songs rather than a spellbinding conceptual masterpiece, but it is superb at what it does, which is playing to the cinematic element of power metal while maintaining a bite size packaging. One does not come to a Sabaton album expecting a depressing collection of songs about how much war sucks, one comes to them expecting Hollywood's take on the subject with larger than life and, perhaps revisionist and quasi-fictitious ideals, so pass the popcorn and let's all enjoy power metal's answer to The History Channel.

Fun fact: Today is my birthday.

Not so fun fact: I'm spending it reviewing this shitty Sabaton album.

Around eight years ago, I reviewed these Swedes' debut album, Primo Victoria. It had some potential to be a fun melodic power metal album but was too in love with its own theme to focus on songwriting in any capacity and just transformed the horrors of war into a bouncy Disney rendition of wanton slaughter. Sabaton is to armed conflict what Alestorm is to the brutal and filthy life of a pirate. Sugary, toothless nonsense with a slightly left-of-center theme and an instantly recognizable vocalist that helped them stand out a bit. Well apparently, since then the band promptly blew the fuck up and became one of the hottest things in mainstream metal. They're headlining 70000 Tons of Metal, co-headlining tours with Nightwish, going platinum in their home country (a completely ludicrous achievement in the era of downloading), they even have their own fucking open air fest if I'm remembering correctly. Just, somehow, completely out of nowhere, people the world over decided they loved the everloving fuck out of whatever it was Sabaton was producing. So with that in mind, I decided to finally take the plunge and listen to their newest album, The Last Stand, my first since their debut.

Holy Christ this is bad.

When people trash Battle Beast for being a metal band with a pop heart that tries desperately to break through and renders their songs unlistenable trash, I imagine they're accidentally listening to Sabaton and not realizing it. Because THIS is a pure pop album with distorted guitars and a gruff vocalist being the only things to make it identifiable as metal. In terms of structuring (every song is within the 3 minute range, barring the opener, "Sparta", which only breaches four minutes because of a pointless intro), the focus of catchiness over everything else, the sugary keyboards, the bouncy melodies and vocal inflections, everything about this might as well be fucking ABBA. Now, I am a Battle Beast fan, so I don't have a problem with keyboard heavy pop metal on principle, but at least those Finns occasionally rip out a song like "Fight, Kill, Die" or just make the hooks so infectious that nothing else matters (like "Out of Control", "Black Ninja", "Out on the Streets", etc). Sabaton manages none of that, as there is a grand total of one song where the hook is good enough to stand out in any way (that song being "Shiroyama"), and one other song where the metal roots break through for a startlingly brief period of time (the admittedly awesome bridge in "Hill 3234"), the rest is pure 80s cheese with zero charisma. Just very plastic, lifeless sounds pumped out on a production line.

I think the most insulting thing about the album is that it's not even offensive in how shit it is. The album blurs by in what feels like a matter of minutes. Every song is utterly inconsequential and has no chance of sticking with you in any way. They're meaningless fluff pieces meant to crank out an album and go back on tour and just leave it at that. I'm having trouble even pointing out individual songs to explain what's wrong with them because they all blur past so quickly with so little thought put into them. I suppose "Sparta" is a little different thanks to the slower, more martial backbone and the HOO! HAH! shouts, but that's about it, and that very well could be purely a result of it being the first track on the album, so my interest hasn't completely drifted off towards some other such nonsense quite yet. Everything else just... happens. It's all so phony and effortless, it's a shameless nothing-album.

The keys themselves deserve special mention, because I can't remember the last time I heard a keyboard tone so offensively crappy. They're very plasticky and shiny, not unlike a Fisher-Price toy from a Wal Mart shelf. It's bad enough that the songs are nothing but lazily written conveyor-belt pop songs, but shoving this weak ass tone to the forefront to carry every melody and compliment every vocal line in every chorus is just blisteringly stupid. It's especially bad on songs like "Winged Hussars" and "The Battle of Bannockburn", where they're just so fucking in-your-face and almost arrogant in how prominent they are.

It's worth noting that I was about to compare the songs to Reinxeed's sugary pointlessness in that last paragraph, and just realized that, while he doesn't play on this album, Tommy Johanssen is actually the newest member of the band, so I rule.

I really can't even bring myself to write anymore, I've already put more effort into this review than they did writing half of the songs. The Last Stand is a safe and effortless pop metal album with absolutely nothing helping it stand out other than the war theme and gruff vocalist. Everything else is weak. Hell, I'm even open to the idea that the hook for "Shiroyama" isn't even that great the only reason I like it is because my interest in Japanese history caused me to hear the line "It's the last stand of the samurai" and wonder aloud "Huh, is this a song about Shiroyama?" before I realized the name of the track. Apparently I haven't been missing much by ignoring Sabaton for the better part of the last decade, I can only hope the rest of the world catches on and abandons them as well.

Happy fucking birthday to me.


Originally written for Lair of the Bastard

Sabaton doesn’t need much of an introduction. Since the turn of the millennium, the Swedish group have been entertaining us with their historically themed, highly catchy power metal and energetic live shows. Their concerts are always great to watch; however the same cannot be said about their albums. Whilst they haven’t produced any complete garbage thus far, some of the albums are less memorable than others. As for which is their best effort, that varies depending on who you ask… Personally I’m a huge fan of the concept album ‘Carolus Rex’, which I believe is an absolute masterpiece and their best work to date. The follow-up ‘Heroes’ had its moments but it never matched the same level of excellence. This brings us to their latest effort ‘The Last Stand’, a concept album which tells stories of eleven defensive “last stand” battles.

Each song focuses on a different battle from various historical events ranging from ancient Greece, medieval Scotland, the two World Wars to Japan at the time of the samurais. So that’s the themes explained, now let’s talk about the actual music… The bombastic and “epic”-sounding Sparta has all the features you would have hoped to hear from an opening track. The ultra-catchy keyboard tunes, epic chanting and cries of “Sparta!” and “Hellas!” in the chorus is enough to make you want put on some armour and run down the nearest hill to attack. Oh wait, hold your horses! Before you start your charge you might want to stick around and listen to what else is on here…

Is that bagpipes I hear? Oh yes!! Bagpipes, a hammond organ, heavy metal and cries of “rally all the clans” along with references to The Scottish Revolution. These are all the things that make Blood of Bannockburn one of the best tracks on the album. Another song that caught my attention was Shiroyama mostly due to the chorus and references to the “the last stand of the Samurai”. I don’t know much about the Japanese history, but I’ve always found the samurai culture intriguing and after hearing this song actually decided to do some research about this battle. Arigatō Sabaton!

So those were my choice cuts, now about the rest of the album… Well, sadly there’s a few tracks on here that sound oddly familiar. Take Winged Hussars for instance, the entire structure, everything from the sing-along-narrative, the keyboards, the guitar riffs to the chorus, is very similar to another song with reference to Polish history – Uprising from the ‘Coat of Arms’ album. Then there’s The Lost Battalion which sounds like an leftover from the ‘Heroes’ album.

Overall it’s a decent effort but there’s quite a bit of recycled ideas here. The stories are all unique but some of the music is a case of Sabaton playing it safe and creating something that’s very similar to what they have done before. It’s as if someone took the best tracks from ‘The Art of War’, ‘Coat of Arms’ and ‘Heroes’, stuck them all in a blender and poured the results into new frames. I’ve been there, done that, I won’t be buying the t-shirt but I’ll probably get the album for Sparta, Blood of Bannockburn and Shiroyama.

Originally written for Valkyrian Music:
https://valkyrianmusic.com/

The Last Stand is a bit like a rollercoaster ride, in the worst possible way. It starts off on a high, with the thumping, rhythmic Sparta but suffers a horrible dip with the sleep-inducing plodder Last Dying Breath, the sickly-sweet Blood of Bannockburn, and the very strange, very unpleasant The Lost Battalion. Luckily, this is where it starts to pick back up, and with the exception of the forgettable Hill 3234, the remainder of the album is some of Sabaton's most impressive work to date.

It's hard to break down and evaluate the individual components of Sabaton's music. It's easier to think of them as kind of a package deal, who show up, play the parts assigned to them, and then leave. They rarely do anything exceptional or technically impressive, it's the way all the elements gel together to create something that's usually easily digestible and highly enjoyable that makes them work for me, and the second half of The Last Stand excels at this. Every band member does exactly what they need to, when they need to do it. It's vocals-driven power metal, make no mistake, but the guitars and drums work together to create this great sense of rhythm that rarely fails to get your foot tapping along, and for the first time in Sabaton's history I actually think their trademark synths are used fairly tastefully, accentuating Joakim's vocals when they need to and falling back into a comfortable part of the melody when they don't. Speaking of Joakim, his vocals are slightly (and I do mean slightly) more ambitious this time around. He's willing to go higher for longer and seems to be more comfortable switching pitch mid-line, which helps create a few catchy vocal hooks that in past albums I feel he would've shied away from.

In terms of the songwriting, Sabaton have never been very original or progressive, they do what works, but there's a little bit of experimentation here. They haven't turned into Symphony X or anything, but there's a little more willingness to have more irregular rhythms and bouncy structures. Rorke's Drift is an especially honorable mention, switching between a couple of different tempos throughout the song and giving it a really great sense of momentum and energy. Hill 3234 is also an honorable mention, this time in a bad way. The song just...randomly turns into Creeping Death by Metallica halfway through. It's utterly bizarre and doesn't fit the song at all. This is something Sabaton have historically had a bit of a problem with. When they try to do something original it can often feel forced, insincere, or it's just a plain bad idea. The latter is exemplified on this album with the otherwise mediocre The Lost Battalion turning into a horrible nightmare of a song when you realise that they've actually done it, the absolute madmen, they've written a song and replaced the sound of the drums with various samples of guns being fired. It's a cool idea in theory, but it just sounds terrible. I'm focusing on the worst examples here, though. The latter half of the album is written well, with songs that ooze energy and get stuck in your head. They're simple, but not to a fault, and there's the odd rhythm change or noodley fill to spice things up a bit.

In terms of lyrics, Sabaton have never really excelled apart from on Carolus Rex and to a lesser degree Heroes, and unfortunately on this album they fall back into old habits. You can tell that Joakim is a lot more passionate about the Carolean Wars and World War 2 than he is about, say, the Scottish wars of independence or the Satsuma Rebellion. This shows within the album itself as well. Songs like Rorke's Drift and the title track have obviously had a lot more thought put into their lyrics than the likes of Blood of Bannockburn, which sounds like the lyrics have been lifted from the Simple English Wikipedia article. This isn't a massive problem for me personally but it might bother some people, especially those who treat Sabaton songs like history lessons.

By this stage, if you buy a Sabaton album you more or less know what to expect. The music on offer here is incredibly catchy. It's a lot of fun. Some of the tracks feel more like dance mixes than power metal songs. The first half of the album is a bit crap, but overall, the musicianship is good, the lyrics are serviceable, the songwriting is full of nifty hooks and melodies that will stay in your head for a long time. There are some nice surprises for those expecting something a bit more substantial, but if you haven't liked Sabaton up until now then this album isn't going to win you over.

Highlights:
Sparta
Rorke's Drift
The Last Stand
Winged Hussars
The Last Battle

Sabaton is one of the most polarizing contemporary metal bands. I've met people who described the Swedish quintet as the successors of bands such as Iron Maiden ten years ago already and I still have friends who have bought all their records and attended numerous concerts. I also know angry opponents of this band that claim that Sabaton repeats itself constantly and that they don't really play authentic heavy metal but bland epic rock for drunk festival visitors. As always, the truth lies somewhere in between both points of view. Sabaton is too one-dimensional to be considered the successors of legendary innovators such as Iron Maiden and purchasing all of their records is definitely only recommended to extremely faithful fans. On the other side, many of the haters are simply stated jealous of the band's popularity which is a recurring issue in this scene and fail to realize that Sabaton has a clear concept for a specific fan base and has never claimed or tried to be anything else.

The band's new output ''The Last Stand'' is plain average. Some tracks certainly have some power like the liberating ''Last Dying Breath'' or the heavy bonus track ''Camouflage'' that should have made it onto the regular version. A few songs have short, entertaining and atmospheric passages like the bagpipe sounds as well as the duel between keyboard and guitar solos in the album highlight ''Blood of Bannockburn'' or the darker keyboard vibes in the intense ''The Lost Battalion''. The band manages to write short and consistent songs without any length which is a rare strength nowadays. The historic themes may be predictable but I salute the group for getting many young metal fans interested in these important topics and stories.

On the other side, the band is clearly running out of ideas again and fails to truly surprise at any moment on this output. Some of the numerous epic topics would have requested a more atmospheric, epic and progressive song structure but the band simply delivers a dozen exchangeable tunes around the three minute mark. It's also inappropriate that some of the songs about quiet gruesome battles aren't just martial and full of bland pathos but disturbingly joyful and at times patriotic like the simplistic ''Shiroyama'' or the exaggerated ''Winged Hussars''. One must also admit that the fanfare keyboard sounds are overused to a point where the band almost sounds like a self-parody sounding like a mixture of Alestorm without the drunken humour and Manowar without the cringeworthy megalomania.

In the end, the generous live album that comes along with most of the numerous special editions is at times more interesting than the actual studio record which is brief yet concise and entertaining yet unspectacular all at once. Sabaton is a band that is best enjoyed live or during a drinking game where every participant has to pick a stereotypical word and drink a shooter as soon as the word is sung until the winner is the last person able to get up and put the new record back in its case at the end of the game. Fans will adore this release and haters will continue to despise the band anyway. Any potential new fan shouldn't start with this release and rather go for the band's debut release or one of the numerous live releases. In my book, ''The Last Stand'' is just plain average.

The one thing you can't fault Sabaton for is not knowing who their audience is – after over a decade of putting out their name-brand style of pomped up, anthemic power metal, they pretty much have it down pat and know what their fans want. At this point, they could literally just take songs from all their previous albums until they have ten or eleven of them, write new lyrics, and release them, and none of their fans would give a shit. The saddest part is, honestly, even that would be better than this new album The Last Stand.

The last Sabaton album I heard was Coat of Arms six years ago, and since then, apparently they've completely lost the plot, because this is fucking horrible. I've kind of grown out of the Sabaton brand of accessible arena-metal the more I listen to metal and any music, but this is bad by any standard. It's utterly sterile, soulless power-pop metal crap. The songwriting has taken a huge nosedive, with every song basically existing around very similar, choir-loaded choruses. I can barely even tell whether singer Joakim Broden sounds good anymore, he's so drowned out in vocal layers and shitty Christmas Carol choirs. They could probably just kick him out of the band and hire a robot to do it from now on with a computer algorithm drawing from all previous Broden performances – it would have the same emotional impact, and I am sure they have that kind of technology now.

The rest of the songs, well, there isn't much to say – a decent Germanic power metal riff here or an okay keyboard hook there can't save these songs, as they are all emotional flatlines, just cardboard cutout songwriting that doesn't progress, excite or engage; merely repeating the verse melody (a never-faltering bass crawl and keyboard swell with Broden singing low over it on pretty much every song) and then the chorus a few more times until their meager three and a half minute runtimes finally expire in a dry sputter. It's tragic how bad this really is – on some of their old albums, the band could at least string together a blood-pumping energetic metal tune, even for how formulaic and poppy they could be.

Here, you don't even get that anymore. These songs are dog shit. They all sound the same. Even if Broden weren't layered up like a music student's final year college project, the melodies he's singing are usually just grating as hell. Songs like “Blood of Bannockburn,” “The Lost Battalion” and the god-awful “Winged Hussars” are tiresome and annoying to listen to. This whole album is plastic, pre-processed garbage; no soul or emotion or energy, no invention or progression. Good bands take their formulas and refine them over and over through their careers. Sabaton instead have phoned in a shit album and chosen to recycle the skeleton of their formula. This fucking sucks. Don't listen to it.