The Symphony to End All Wars

This one will be brief, as the mere notion of Sabaton releasing a symphonic album ought to be alerting enough.

Yes, just as the title and the artwork suggest, this is indeed a symphonic rendition of Sabaton's latest travesty: The War to End All Wars. That album was creatively bankrupt, lowest-common-denominator garbage (see my review of it for details), and merely being played with orchestral instruments instead of the guitars and drums does nothing to help the matters whatsoever. This album would be worthless regardless of the style its played in. No style can compensate for a lack of substance.

I won't deny the fact that the performances here are good. The staff behind this album is highly competent and know how to make Sabaton's compositions sound deep, energetic and captivating. Note my phrasing there: they make them sound deep, energetic and captivating. They aren't actually so. There is no creativity, attention to detail, subtle touches, progression and development of the compositions, build-ups and climaxes or any other metric by which the value of classical music (or music in general) is measured to be found anywhere on this album. The songs here are utter emotional flatlines, and the music a watered down, pale imitation of the most cliché movie soundtrack imaginable, or an amateur's attempt at emulating God of War and The Elder Scrolls OSTs in FL Studio. It's seemingly exciting and lively, but empty, repetitive, derivative (not to mention plagiarized) and entirely valueless in reality. The album sounds impressive and grandiose on the surface with its seemingly triumphant trumpets, elegant violins, heavenly choirs and technically flawless arrangements, but it doesn't take a careful analysis to realize how soulless, fake and deceptive the whole thing is; from the robotic and passionless performances (to the point of sounding like it was entirely manufactured on a computer, rather than being played by actual instruments), over the cheap attempts to get an emotional reaction to the absolutely shallow and spurious songwriting. It's as if Sabaton is well aware of how worthless their latest album was, and thus, have decided that a symphonic version of it should be made in order to make them appear mature and sophisticated without putting in any effort (notice how the band themselves had no part in the creation of this album) and hopefully fooling others into believing that their music is anything other than completely shallow and IQ-reducing sewage. After you realize that, each second of this worthless plastic will only keep angering you until you're at the end of your patience. And by the time you reach Versailles (if you make it that far, that is), you'll be on the verge of vomiting. That's how revolting the whole thing is.

I could mention a few more specific criticisms, but this uninspired and artificial turd doesn't deserve it. I explained the big picture, the essence of why this album is worthless. That is enough, and I do not wish to waste anyone's time with trifles. The Symphony to End All Wars is phony, sterile, specious and effortless piece of worthlessness that has "We were paid by Sabaton to make their music appear better than it actually is" written all over it in capital letters. For that reason, it is merely yet another crime against music and any sort of intelligence, sapience and common sense.