Sabaton ‎"The Last Stand" CD

It's a curious thing, an exercise in sameness inspiring a small yet loud backlash in certain circles after more than a decade, but not necessarily any newer than the sound that Sabaton has displayed for their 17 year history without fail nor evolutionary leap. It can get annoying to be treated to that tired cliche of "you either like them or you don't", but in this band's case, it is the best way to sum up their nature as it is highly improbably that one could draw a significant distinction between one album and the next, barring maybe their delayed debut Metalizer which had a different set of lyrical subjects. This is a niche band that cleaves to their niche as if it were holy writ, and the only mystique to it all is why anyone thinks that a "dependable product" necessitates that one feel DPed over the whole thing on the eighth pass. Puns and digressions into audience reactions aside, Sabaton's latest studio excursion The Last Stand continues the tradition with no massive divergences in the established liturgy, and that is by no means an unwelcome eventuality.
To the uninitiated, this is a band that has held to an extremely keyboard oriented and pithy take on power metal, one that is heavily informed by the lighter end of the Helloween spectrum as embodied by a number of Swedish and German acts, with Freedom Call and Dream Evil being the more obvious comparisons. Little has changed since their 2005 debut Primo Victoria save a massive lineup shift and an updated production job with all the latest gimmicks, largely due to this ultimately being Joakim Brodén's baby through and through. That's really the crux of what happens on any Sabaton album, the keyboardist turned front man puts much of the emphasis on keyboards and his admittedly unique gravely take on power metal vocals and leaves just enough room for the rest of the arrangement to keep it from turning into overt fluff comparable to the stereotypical early 2000s Italian sound. The only real outlier relative to previous output is the presence of Thorbjörn Englund, who is put in a compact box when his solos ring out comparable to Sascha Gershner during the early days of Freedom Call, but tears the guitar up in far more a technically impressive Malmsteen-like fashion than his predecessors from Carolus Rex and on back.
Relative to the last album Heroes, this one proves to be slightly more sugary and tame, if only because of a greater proliferation of keyboard drenched fanfare reminiscent of 80s arena rock compared to speed-infused or heavier numbers. The title song "The Last Stand", "Last Dying Breath" and "Winged Hussars" could easily pass for mid 80s Dio or even Dokken with a cleaner/higher voice and a lighter guitar tone, and much of the first half of this album is spent in auspiciously lighter territory than any previous album from this outfit. Things do pick up considerably with the introduction of "Rorke's Drift", which brings a needed dose of Helloween oriented speed to remind us that this is ultimately a power metal album, and "Hill 3234" takes it a step further and provides some Painkiller brand name heaviness to keep the war and death element in place. In total, this album would find itself in about the same territory as the admittedly good if a somewhat overly safe debut album Primo Victoria, but when accounting from the covers found on the digital version of Priest's "All Guns Blazing" (which is done about as faithfully as possible and downplays the keyboards) and Maiden's "Afraid To Shoot Strangers" (which goes heavy on the keyboards and sounds lighter than the original, but captivating none the less), this is up there with Coat Of Arms.
The charge that this album isn't memorable or otherwise bereft of impact is not accurate, though it is plausible that one could have a negative reaction to this relative to past works as it is a more concentrated dose of safeness when broken down song for song. Popularity tends to come with consistency, and the one charge that can't really be laid at this band's doorstep is that they've been pandering to the washed masses. It would be a stretch to call this an out and out great album as it has little sense of stylistic adventure and generally listens like a collection of short songs rather than a spellbinding conceptual masterpiece, but it is superb at what it does, which is playing to the cinematic element of power metal while maintaining a bite size packaging. One does not come to a Sabaton album expecting a depressing collection of songs about how much war sucks, one comes to them expecting Hollywood's take on the subject with larger than life and, perhaps revisionist and quasi-fictitious ideals, so pass the popcorn and let's all enjoy power metal's answer to The History Channel.

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