Band : Sabaton

Album title : The Art Of War

Label : Black Lodge

Distributor : Sound Pollution - Suburban

Release date : 30/05/2008

Release : CD

According to the dictionary, a sabaton or solleret is part of a knight's armour covering the foot...but Sabaton is also the name of the Swedish "True" Metal band, formed in 1999 by former Stormwind frontman Joakim Brodén.

We made our acquaintance with the Swedes almost two year ago, with the July 2006 release of the band's third album Attero Dominatus, a review of which you can still find posted 29/07/2008, and which is subject of a couple of corrections. Seems that between the release of the first album for Black Lodge (2005's Primo Victoria) and its follow-up (2006's Attero Dominatus), the band was joined by keyboardist Daniel Mÿhr, who's completed the sextet ever since! In March 2007, Black Lodge also released the missing album Metalizer (originally intended as the band's second full-length on the Underground Symphony label, and in actuallity a selection of re-recorded versions of the Fist For Fight album songs, plus a couple of extra songs) in a 2-disc package, the second disc containing the original Fist For Fight recordings. Limited editions of the album even added a bonus cover of Judas Priest's "Jawbreaker". By then, the band had gathered enough popularity all over Europe (thanks to tours with Dragonforce, Edguy, Gamma Ray, Grave Digger, Helloween, Lordi, and Therion to name but the most resounding tour partners, and several headline tours) and in their home country, for the Metalized album to shoot right to the #21 position in the Swedish album charts, and to win the band a Swedish Metal Award in the "Heavy And Power Metal" category.

Keeping the topic of warfare a constant on their albums, Sabaton now returns with the 13-track conceptual The Art Of War. Although each song stands on its own, there IS an additional red thread (besides the war related one) in the three spoken word tracks and bits in seven other songs' intros or outros...the spoken word parts taken from the ancient warfare manual written by the Chinese philisopher Sun Tzu, 600 years before Christ! Just like on the previous studio album, Sabaton's Power Metal is a nicely keyboard-laden Heavy Metal with guitar play which is mostly rhythmic and riff-geared (with a bit of lead/ solo thrown in for good measure), and a somewhat bombastic feel thanks to the harmonic backing vocals with their Classical touch (I wouldn't be surprised if they recorded with an actual choir). Brodén still has that raw voice which is such a great contrast to the rest of the vocal soundscape. On myspace.com/sabaton, you'll not only find two songs off the Attero Dominatus album and one off Primo Victoria, but also two off the new album, and the track "Cliffs Of Gallipoli" already got a video which you can view (as well as two older music clips).

At the time being, the band is already confirmed for over 80 shows in the rest of the year, including appearances at several of the European Summer festivals (Wacken Open Air, Sweden Rock Festival, Masters Of Rock, Metaltown, etc...but also Belgium's own Graspop Metal Meeting). As for my personal appreciation of the band's current album...I like, and I will bear witness to the fact that the compositions are well-written, the execution of the songs perfect...but I won't go nuts over it! A nice album to listen to while waiting for something more riveting...but that's my own opinion, and I'm certain Melodic Power Metal fans will be able to listen to this album and more of its ilk for hours and days on end. Me, I like a little bit of variety, see...but when truth be told, I like this album better that the previous one!

86/100

Tony.