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Sabaton: The Last Stand

Melodic/Heavy/Power Metal

4.0/5.0

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Nuclear Blast Records
Words: Craig Hartranft
Added: 18.08.2016

With The Last Stand, Sabaton drops their eighth studio album, once more on the Nuclear Blast label. If you have any familiarity with Swedish metal band Sabaton, then you know what you're going to get with a new album. But let's break it down. It's rather simple.

Sabaton

First, musically, you'll get bombastic melodic power metal with roaring riffage, brisk pacing, synth orchestration, large vocal arrangements, and soaring guitar solos. Second, thematically, you get what can only be described as military history heavy metal. Sabaton has been regaling us with tales of battles, triumphs and defeats, both ancient and modern for some time. The Last Stand is not merely a title, but a cohesive theme for all the songs. Every song has something to do with an soldiers, whether large or small, outnumbered or not, making their final stand against tremendous. The songs and their historical context are as follows:

Sparta - Battle of Thermopylae
Last Dying Breath - Dragutin Gavrilovic
Blood of Bannockburn - Battle of Bannockburn
Diary of an Unknown Soldier - Meuse-Argonne Offensive
The Lost Battalion - Lost Battalion (WWI)
Rorke's Drift - Battle of Rorke's Drift
The Last Stand - Stand of the Swiss Guard
Hill 3234 - Battle for Hill 3234
Shiroyama - Battle of Shiroyama
Winged Hussars - Polish hussars/Battle of Vienna
The Last Battle - Battle for Castle Itter

You can use Google or Wikipedia to catch up on your military history.

And that's pretty much it. All you need to know about the latest Sabaton album, The Last Stand. Call them predictable or simply formulaic, but Sabaton completely owns the military history heavy metal niche. Sabaton fans will be pleased once more. Recommended.

Sabaton - The Last Battalion

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Call them predictable or simply formulaic, but Sabaton completely owns the military history heavy metal niche. Sabaton fans will be pleased once more. Recommended.

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Here's a fun fact about Swiss legends, Gotthard: their last 16 releases, excepting their debut album, went to number one in their home country, making them one of Switzerland's most successful acts and ... [ Read More ]