Music Sabaton

[Ants!]

Anyone else listen to these guys? I've discovered them by accident on Pandora (or maybe it was Spotify) when listening to Blind Guardian songs and it started making suggestions for other bands. These guys though don't really sing about fantasy or other fictional stuff, but actual history. Lots of songs about great wars and battles and moments of heroism, and I've learned through their songs about several badasses from the past that I would have never heard about otherwise. Some examples:

The Last Battle (end of WW2)
Resist and Bite (the Chasseurs Ardennais, Belgium soldiers that held out heroically against the Nazi invasion)
82nd All the Way (sergeant Alvin York in WW1)
Ghost in the Trenches (Francis Pegahmagabow in WW1)
The First Soldier (Albert Severin Roche in WW1)
The Last Stand (the knights templar of the Swiss Guard in 1527)
White Death (Simo Häyhä, the most badass sniper who ever lived)
Sparta (the battle of Thermopylae)
Shiroyama (the battle of Shiroyama, duh)
Rorke's Drift (Tolkien found inspiration from this to write the battle of Helms Deep)
Seven Pillars of Wisdom (Lawrence of Arabia)

I'm sure there are lots more. Oh also "Metal Machine" is a great song that makes reference to many other famous metal songs in their lyrics, sort of a tribute song to the greats among Metal that came before them. Well worth a listen too.

 

[Crystal]

Oh absolutely, love their music, fantastic band and I love that they dive into stories that make you want to learn more, like the Night Witches, the Smoking Snakes, basically the entire Carolus Rex album (though I suppose that's just history class for Swedes), Inmate 4859 / Witold's Report...so many great moments they touch on.

 

[Ants!]

Yeah, that's my favorite thing is hearing a great song by them and then going to look up the story behind it.

 

[Crystal]

Absolutely, learning about guys like Lauri Torni (sorry, Finns, I am unlautless) and how he served in three different armies. So cool! All from a song!

 

[Nae'blis]

I love Sabaton! Totally unbiased..

They excel at bringing history to life with awesome stories and good-ass heavy metal! Plus, they are a great live band! Seen them three times! And tomorrow, I'm going to the world premiere of their concert film shot during the Tour to End All Tours.

I like how they portray all kinds of POV's from different wars in different eras.

 

[Ben]

They were in definitely on my playlist while on my power metal kick. Both good music and historically informative.

For some reason thinking about them also made me think of ArnoCorps, the Arnold Schwarzenegger tribute band...

 

[Spiner202]

I'm a fan. I've been listening to them since about 2010, and I saw them for the first time in 2012. It's wild how much bigger they are now than they were back then.

My enjoyment of them has declined a little bit over the years because they're pretty repetitive, but there's no doubt that they are great at writing songs.

 

[Ants!]

 

[Nae'blis]