Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

There are few groups like Sabaton, ones to whom are willing, or indeed able to look at history’s most decisive moments, those that submit a kind of behind the scenes sense of delivery of the people at the heart of any struggle for freedom, or perhaps those whose sense of destiny was that of conquest wrapped in the false paint of glory and the desperation of subterfuge and reckoning, and in all fairness the group do it with extreme cool and a style that holds the world of power metal enthralled.

The new album, Legends, sees the return of Thobbe Englund to the Swedish leaders of the genre, it is a loss for many, a wrench that Tommy Johansson relinquished such a role, but one that is given cheer that a musician who enhanced the sheer grit and sonic perfection on The Last Stand with such guile and persuasion.

The five members of the group stand firm in their commitment to bring the desire of narrative to the war, it is not about glorifying in the effect, the bitterness of the action, the harrowing effects, but the symbolism of the sound, and as Joakim Brodén, Pär Sundström Chris Rörland, Hannes Van Dahl, and the aforementioned Thobbe Englund tackle subjects such as the invasions and conquests of Genghis Khan, the life of French military commander of Julius Ceaser, the complexity of Joan of Arc’s leadership, the existence of the legendary source of the Bram Stoker novel, Dracula, Vlad the Impaler, and the famous crossing of the Alps by Hannibal, what transpires is an album which understands the need to continuously study history, to revel in it, to not give way to emotional feelings that swerve a truth.

Across tracks such as Hordes Of Khan, A Tiger Among Dragons, Crossing The Rubicon, I, Emperor, and The Cycle Of Songs, Sabaton crush apathy towards one of the great subjects of the Humanities with vengeance, with a stick of musical dynamite thrown into the mindset of the unworthy and followed up with vessel of strategic bombs designed to alter minds, to caress the senses and give history a face, to give its time resurgence against those who refuse to acknowledge its importance.

Sabaton’s sound has always been immense, in Legends it becomes vast and deeply solemn.

Ian D. Hall