With a genuine passion for the subject, however, and no lack of research in delivering the most in-depth commemoration possible in a few minutes of music, these songs do feel like a genuine, worthwhile form of remembrance.
“It almost feels disrespectful, trying to condense four years of conflict into 40 minutes of heavy metal,” frontman Joakim Brodén told us of their latest album, stressing the difficulty of revisiting some incredibly heavy history while maintaining a lightness of touch. Sabaton tightrope it just about every day. There’s an art to balancing the ridiculous and the sublime. To quote a wise man: “Come on you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?!” We thought we’d pull on our most weathered fatigues for a look back at how the Falun battalion have outmanoeuvred even their most vociferous critics, and at why those of you who’ve been sleeping for too long on their gleefully OTT attack better shape up and join the ever-swelling ranks of the Sabaton Army. With uber-bombastic World War One concept-album The Great War (their ninth LP thus far) having just dropped like a 120 mm pig iron incendiary shell, though, not to mention the headline performances at Derby’s Bloodstock Open Air festival (August 9) and London’s Wembley Arena (February 8, 2020) looming, their popularity is at an all time high. But when they back it up with songs as cheesily overblown as Primo Victoria and The Red Baron, it’s just too much to stomach for the uninitiated. Clinging, with po-faced persistence to their war torn imagery, heroic themes and (literal) battle-vests is one thing. For many outsiders, Swedish military metallers Sabaton feel like the laughing-stock of post-Millennial metal.
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