It’s that time of year again, a new Sabaton album! I haven’t really listened to much new music these past few months but that’s alright, figure now would be a good time to check this shit out.

So let’s take a moment to remember what Sabaton is all about, war and history, or rather creating epic songs about war, heroes and such. Past topics have usually focused on WWII material although  recently they have tried to diversify considerably. Last one being about heroes in modern warfare, and before that a whole Swedish medieval history lesson about their great king Carolus Rex. Seeing as how this is their second new album since most of the original band broke up and created Civil War, I’m still not really sure why they parted.

In any regards this album, “The Last Stand” is something of a concept album where all of the songs are relating to historical battles about well, last stands; think 300 and the Battle of Thermopylae and king Leonidas and shit. Well quite literally that’s what this shit is about, the first song on this thing is a track called “Sparta” and no shit, it’s about the Battle of Thermopylae. While normally focused on WWI, Sabaton has really tried hard to diversify the stories being told in their songs. We have a song about the Battle of Bannockburn which is about scottish independence (braveheart, freedom). Several songs about WWI, Last Dying Breath, Diary of an Unknown Soldier, The Lost Battalion. A song about British army owning Zulus (blacks) during the Battle of Rorke’s Drift (defense) back in the day like in 19th century. A song about the Battle of Shiroyama, literally the last battle in The Last Samurai and only 1 WWII song. Wow, you get the idea.

Songs are a bit shorter than normal, most only clocking in at about 3 and a half minutes with vastly shorter lyrics which get repeated maybe once or twice. The actual composition of each song is kind of erratic, with the style and flow of each song varying greatly. For instance, in the medieval history songs, they use a lot of keyboard synth and sound effects (cause medieval times is more fruity?) while others use none and are more raw. Some songs, such as Rorke’s Drift, Shiroyama feel kinda of forced and overly happy? Not sure, they are still great songs but with each song it really is like I am traveling through time and shit. Fucking just like DRIFTERS ANIME.

The cover of this album can accurately be summed up as a visual representation of the TV show “The Deadliest Warrior”, which pits historical warriors against each other in theoretical battles, like knight vs samurai and shit of that nature. It goes without saying that this cover illustration is pretty metal and badass but we also got 4 WWI/WWII/Vietnam soldiers, 2 Spartans, 1 Winged Hussar and 1 Samurai. NOT BAD. LOL. It would have been nice if they put in a Scottish highlander or maybe a knight on as well to cover all bases.

The version I got also had a few cover songs, the best being Judas Priests “All Guns Blazing” a song which I really like from their Painkiller alumna, which in mai opinion, is their best album. They do good shit, sounds good. In the lyrics sheet book they also have background images and a little blurb explaining the history behind the songs, which is pretty cool with bad ass illustrations/collages.

All in all the album itself is solid and just good all around, it’s Sabaton so no matter what at least your in for a good history lesson. Their last album, Heroes was good but this one may be even better.

Score: 9