Sabaton - Heroes (2014)

Heroes is the title of Sabaton's seventh studio album. It's a simple title, reflecting what contained inside for this "semi-full" studio album. Ten tracks inside and they are just run at 36 minutes. This marked the new beginning for Sabaton. We all know that half of the band 'rebel' away and formed Civil War. So, this is their first album with new line up.

With all songs runs only about 3 to 4 minutes, it's just like all the essence of power metal compacted in one way. "Night Witches" started it,  muscular power choruses all over the way, got blitzing guitar solos, a climax, then ending choruses. You can't get any more generic than this structures, yet it is show how power metal should be done. "No Bullets Fly" is a bit of humorous with all that European accents singing, completely brings out the feeling of World War II and its killing machine in the region. Indeed this song still has enough slot for improvised "uh-oh" near the end. On the darker tracks is "Inmate 4859", where we switch to a slower tempo, perfectly fit the lyrics about mysterious prisoner. We also got their folk metal side with "To Hell And Back". "The Ballad Of Bull" is piano ballad with Joakim Borden excellent bariton voices. This song have that Manowar power ballad feel. For a guitar riffs attack in very power metal way, listen to "Soldier Of 3 Armies". The last track is "Hearts Of Iron", another melodic song to say farewell, with a Bach improvisation.

Take away all the symphonic decorations and the over improvised progressive structure that plagues today's power metal band, we got this album. Heroes is obviously the most straight forward power metal album. It's build on simplicity. The negative side is also obviously, the album runs at too short durations. Songs like "Night Witches" and "To Hell And Back" seems suffered on this concept. While some of the songs just perfectly fit into this simply structures. If you need something to blast off the day with excellent muscular power metal voices, Heroes is definitely going to help you out.

Metal Harem class: *********** nine stars out of ten

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Sabaton - Heroes (2014) 

1. Night Witches
2. No Bullets Fly
3. Smoking Snakes
4. Inmate 4859
5. To Hell And Back
6. The Ballad Of Bull
7. Resist And Bite
8. Soldier Of 3 Armies
9. Far From The Fame
10. Hearts Of Iron

Joakim Brodén - vocals

Christoffer Rörland - guitars

Thorbjörn "Thobbe" Englund - guitars

Hannes Van Dahl - drums

Pär Sundström - bass