June 28th. Already at Metalfest I was seeing posters plastered all over the place about June 28th, and figured out Sabaton was giving out a new single. This single, “Great War” simply captures everything that was World War I. Not a specific event, just the greatness (eh) of it.
So about the song then, shall we?
This song starts off in an epic way with big drums and echoing choirs. It has the kind of opening that draws the thoughts to the Raubtier song “Sveriges Elit”, the anthem kind of hook that serves as a simple adrenaline shot to your heat. When reaching the verse, it mellows down to simply Jocke’s voice and keyboards.
The deeper tones of the voice and sturdiness in his singing combined with the lingering keyboards create an epic atmosphere, almost putting you out in the battlefield. The pre-chorus builds up, similarly to the preceeder “The Last Stand” before it culminates in the epicness anthem hymn kind of chorus that explodes inside you. The song continues on similarly, only with a more aggressive tone and some added guitars for the second verse, until it emerges into a shredding solo to again end up with the epicness of “The Last Stand”.
This song gives me chills. When I heard it the first time, and when I heard it for the tenth time, I still get the chills. I think you my true readers at this point have learned I love anthem-like songs, so it shouldn’t surprise you.
But something I wanna talk about. The lyrics.
I have reprimanded Sabaton for making generic lyrics for “Fields of Verdun”… but all of that is made up here. The story being told in the verse, from the point of view of a soldier, sharing of the brutality, grimness of the war, the honest spoken words about how there are no victors nor losers in war – we all are the losers. This is the lyrics I would have expected from “Fields of Verdun”, so Sabaton – all is forgiven. This, combined with the grime feeling Jocke puts into the voice when he sings.. makes it perfection. Wow.What a song. NOW, Now I’m most certainly feeling the excitement for the album.
Thank you.
// Sara
Sara Hammerzmith 