Sabaton is metal that’s so metal, even the band’s name is a reference to medieval knights’ armor. Sabaton makes music about war, history’s greatest battles, and daring feats of combat badassery, but the real purpose is to honor the men and women throughout history who have borne the battle and performed legendary feats.
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The band’s latest album, “Legends”, features songs about the many legends of military history, including the Knights Templar, Genghis Khan, Japanese swordsman Miyamoto Musashi, and more. Its previous albums were also themed. 2019’s “The Great War,” for example, was a catalog of songs about just World War I.
If you’ve never had an interest in military history, Sabaton might make the difference for you.
And the music videos are pretty great.
SABATON – 1916 (Official Music Video)
Sabaton songs are power metal, but anyone who thinks metal is just a bunch of growling or screaming should take a look at the lyrics and realize: these words are poetic and thoughtful, waxing about real historical events. From the Serbians fighting in World War I to Poland’s legendary Winged Hussars, and even the Russians at Stalingrad, the band’s heroes aren’t solely Swedish: they’re anyone who did something daring and bold for their comrades on the battlefield.
In previous works, the band has told the stories of the Night Witches, female Soviet aviators who terrorized the Nazis on the Eastern Front of World War II; the Brazilian Expeditionary Force in World War II; and Audie Murphy’s postwar struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder.
I know the video below looks like a broken link, but it’s really a music video for Sabaton’s heavy metal song about the 101st Airborne at Bastogne, called “Screaming Eagles.” The music video begins with Gen. Anthony MacAuliffe’s now-famous reply to the German surrender demand: “Nuts.”
The band’s entire fourth album was inspired by Sun Tzu’s Art of War, another album is about World War II, and the Finnish-Russian Winter War. They have released singles about the World War II-era battleship Bismarck and World War I’s Lost Battalion, nine companies of the United States 77th Infantry Division who lost more than half their manpower at the Argonne Forest in 1918.
Sabaton has won almost every metal award for which they were nominated, including Best Breakthrough Band and Best Live Band, and was nominated for the 2012 “Metal as F*ck” Award for their album “Carolus Rex,” which was actually about the rise of the Swedish Empire under King Charles XII.
The song below is about 189 Swiss Guards who defended the Vatican during the Sack of Rome in 1527.
SABATON – The Last Stand (Official Music Video)
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