How About That Thing?

I’ve always had a bit of a complicated relationship with the power metal subgenre. I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite genre in the universe, but I do occasionally find myself following a band in the genre rather closely from time to time. Even then, though, nine out of ten of the power metal bands I develop a fandom for just can’t seem to hold my attention for long. And the remainder is Sabaton.

Sabaton is a Swedish band that I discovered in 2011. They’d been around for a while prior, but I didn’t learn about them until the music service I subscribed to did that whole “Hey, I see you really love Blind Guardian. Maybe you’ll like these guys too” thing. Which, to its credit, I did like to check out some of these bands I’d never heard of that happened to be in the same ball park.

I’m guessing Sabaton wound up in the power metal subgenre for their epic guitar solos more than anything else. Because near as I can tell, they’re almost the antithesis of power metal.

• The singer, while able to carry a tune, isn’t what I’d call operatic, or even a tenner.
• the songs aren’t about D&D like fantasy crap, and are based exclusively on real world events.
• A lot of the instrumentation, while far from amateur hour, doesn’t feel like it’s trying too hard to be a masterclass in [INSERT INSTRUMENT HERE].

If anything, I consider Sabaton to be “historian metal.” I can’t rember if I came up with that one on my own, or if I think I did and about ninety different people beat me to it because they’d been in the fandom longer… But all the same, I think it fits.

As I said before, a lot of their work is about historical battles, figures, wars, and the like. And about two or three of their songs are basically “let’s see how many heavy metal references can we cram into this final track that might or might not be filler.” Yeah, songs like “metal machine”, while having some decent riffs, are the kind of shit I can do without. Largely because it reminds me of poems I wrote in middle school when I thought I was being clever and witty. Seriously, I did one for System of a Down, I did one for Korn, and I THINK I did one for Metallica, and they ALL sucked. But I digress.

If I had to pick an album that I’d consider the essential listen, the one album that’ll make or break your first impression of Sabaton, the one album you absolutely have to have in your collection or you’re just a filthy fucking poser… Well, there’s a lot of good choices, but for me personally, it’d have to be “Carolus Rex.”

By the time I discovered this band, they were somewhere between mixing this album, and wrapping up anything to do with their previous album, “Coat of Arms.” I remember hearing the song “A lifetime of War” for the very first time, and being absolutely blown away. True, there was the slightest hint here and there that English might not be Joakim Broden’s first language. Little things, like “Vikings and queen’s young men all sent to die in war.” Compared to some of the Norwegian crap I was listening to in high school years prior, though, it’s fucking Shakespear by comparison.

“Carolus Rex” refers to this guy specifically.

This is a portrait of King Charles XII of Sweden. AKA, Carolus Rex. In reality, he was actually Charles VI, but monarchy had this weird superstition thing with various numbers and what not… It’s confusing. Furthermore, there have been multiple books written about the legacy of Carolus Rex, and for a more detailed biography, I’d suggest reading one of those instead. But if you want to hear some forty-year-old stay-at-home dad blogging out of boredom’s opinion on a concept album loosely based on him, stick around.

Yeah, I say “losely based” because while the entire album is named after him, only about a third of the album is really about him. Like, I don’t know for sure if The Thirty Years War, or the battle of 1648 in Prague had anything to do with anything relating to Carolus Rex, and all I can say for my ignorence is that I’m a filthy American who was only ever taught stuff about the French-Indian war at absolute earliest. But they’re still really good songs.

Honestly, the only skippable track on the entire album is probably the very first track, and that’s only because it’s, like, ten seconds long, and feels like it got sawed off of track 2 to save time, or ensure track 2 would get radio play. Trust me, Stone Sour did the same thing with one of their singles, and I think Disturbed did too. It wouldn’t be out of the realm of plausibility.

Beyond this one minor hiccup, though, this album is fantastic.

Hell, even the cover of “In the Army Now” is worth a listen! I’d never even heard of Status Quo before I’d heard this album, and… Well, honestly, nothing came of that knowledge after hearing the original version, but Sabaton’s version remained a fixture in my favorite songs list for years.

FUN FACT: at one point, I was working on a music video for Sabaton’s “In the Army Now” using little toy army men. Unfortunately, I figured out in the process of photographing and arranging figures and the like that this was possibly a bit TOO ambitious for one person. Oh, what could have been.

All and all, this is an album I will always recommend you check out.