The brightest spot on this blustering musical affair is the solo work of Majestica mastermind and guitarist Tommy Johansson, who brings a charming neo-classical virtuoso twist to an otherwise highly straightforward presentation.Īpproaching this auditory recount of the First World War in a semi-chronological manner, an impressive, if somewhat bloated overture dubbed “Sarajevo” kicks things off with a point by point lyrical recount of Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination and the initiation of hostilities in the Balkans. But to their credit, this power quintet gets the job done in the musical department, as the keyboard-steeped consonance of the instrumentation, driving force of the rhythm section and Broden’s haggard, gravely baritone bark paints a vivid picture of the duality of presumed glory and actual horror that goes along with the subject in question. If anything, Sabaton’s lyrical delivery involves a somewhat counterintuitive approach of telling rather than showing, featuring an expansive amount of spoken narration segments that would make the excessive ones employed on Rhapsody Of Fire’s “Emerald Sword” saga seem measured by comparison.

Those with an insatiable appetite for the documentary film approach to conveying a narrative that is regularly seen on The History Channel will definitely find a familiar affair here. Coming just under three years since the World War I-centered conceptual endeavor and their 9 th studio LP “The Great War” took the mainline metal consuming public by storm, vocal helmsman, keyboardist and amateur war historian Joakim Broden and his band of merry Swedes have opted to put forth a sequel of sorts in their 10 th studio album to date “The War To End All Wars.” Yet while this band has become known for sticking to a highly stylized approach to songwriting that puts sing-along hooks ahead of technical intrigue, this time around the formula has been tweaked a bit, revealing an album that takes the idea of a book-on-tape approach to power metal to its logical conclusion and also throws in a greater share of virtuosic flourishes for good measure. Some stories, be they historical or fictional, are just too large to be contained in a single album, or at least that is the logic behind Sweden’s most popular power metal export Sabaton’s latest studio venture.

The War is too great for a single episode.

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