By Jonny Bakes
Anyone who has been with us a while will know that I’m a pretty big fan of Sabaton and have been since I stumbled across them at Hammerfest in 2011. The combination of historical lessons and epic metal music managed to scratch an itch that I didn’t know I had, the songs are catchy as hell and the subject matter is simply fascinating! If you’ve somehow been under a rock for the last decade, it’s pretty hard to miss that Sabaton have become one of the biggest successes in power metal, with multi-platinum albums under their belt, their own history channel on YouTube, their own cruise and even their own festival, Sabaton Open Air (although this has been on hiatus since the last event in 2022).
While it’s always been hard to pick my favourite album to date, I do often find myself coming back to the ‘Heroes’ album as the subtle shift in concept to focus on individual achievements of valour during WWII made for a really impactful album! So when I heard that ‘Legends’ was going to take a similar approach and depict individuals from throughout history, I knew that I had to get my hands on it as soon as possible.
‘Legends’ is the first album to be recorded since the departure of Tommy Johansson and the return of former guitarist Thobbe Englund and takes a bit of a departure from the standard Sabaton creative process which is heavily driven by Joakim and Pär – instead ‘Legends’ sees the whole band making significant contributions to the songwriting. But, this is still very much a Sabaton album in every sense of the word!
Sabaton have finely honed their songwriting formula over the last two-and-a-bit decades meaning that ‘Legends’ delivers exactly what you would expect. It’s packed to the rafters with epic anthems that march relentlessly through the album with healthy doses of orchestral synths, key changes, guitar solos and Joakim’s unmistakable powerful, yet gruff, vocals. You may find yourself thinking you’ve heard some of the songs before, where the formula is so well applied that some riffs sound strikingly similar to songs from previous albums, but this isn’t a problem at all, instead it helps these new anthems stick in the mind!
‘Legends’ makes history come alive with epic tales of key historical figures, such as Joan of Arc, Napoleon Bonaparte, Genghis Khan and even revisiting Gustavus Adolphus (who, of course, makes an appearance in the multi-platininum album ‘Carolus Rex’). It’s like being beaten about the head with a history book in the best kind of way!
From start to finish, each song is an epic symphony in its own right and the album maintains a marching pace throughout, with very little dips in energy to befit the serious weight of the historical figures it depicts. The leading singles have all been well received to date, giving fans a good taste for what’s to come, but there’s still plenty more to discover when the album releases on Friday!
Speaking of leading singles, you cannot neglect to mention ‘Templars’ which finally covers a topic that Sabaton fans have been crying out to be covered for many years. I still remember it being memed to death when ‘The Last Stand’ single was released with many (wrongly) claiming it to be about the Knights Templar.
‘Templars’ opens the album in the perfect way, with a latin choral chanting leading into an epic riff that is instantly recognisable as Sabaton resulting in an explosive introduction to ‘Legends’. The chorus is catchy as hell as well, and I can see this going down a storm in their live show – imagine thousands of people singing “God’s call, holy order, Knights of Jesus Christ, Charge from the temple” to the beat. It’s a song that broke into my regular rotation from the moment it was released and got me, and I’m sure many other fans, really excited about what’s to come!
But let’s look at one of the singles that has just seen the light of day with one of my favourites, ‘I, Emperor’ depicting French Emperor and military legend Napoleon Bonaparte. This song starts with a short foreboding introduction before launching into a marching beat layered with a chugging riff and vocal samples to set the scene. Then Joakim’s vocals kick in to give a Napoleon-centric view of this famous Emperor with the incredibly catchy chorus of “I will conquer all, I will rule” and a whole host of other things that Napoleon felt he would do during his years of ambition. It’s a song that stuck in my head for hours after listening to the album, the chorus may be repeated many times during the song, but that’s nothing compared to the amount of times that it repeated in my head! I liked ‘I, Emperor’ so much that I might go out and buy the Napoleon special edition of the album…
Overall, this is most certainly a Sabaton album! It picks up the thread where ‘Heroes’ left off and absolutely brings to life the stories of historical legends with anthemic performances! This is surely a must-buy for power metal fans and history buffs alike so that you can bang your head and get a damn good education at the same time. There’s plenty of choice out there for fans who still buy physical copies of albums, with the vinyl release coming in 11 variants, each depicting one of the historical figures mentioned on this album (HMV have an exclusive purple Julius Caesar one!) or if you’ve got some money to burn, there’s the 99€ mega box edition with plenty of additional goodies.
And if you thought this album was epic, there’s the opportunity to catch Sabaton live in December with the Legendary Orchestra to add even more layers to this masterpiece! You better believe I’ll be in Manchester to witness that.
- ‘Legends‘ is released today (Friday 17 October).
