[Music] Sabaton: "Legends" (upcoming)

[yuuago]

Sabaton has announced a new album, Legends, due to be released in October. This is a different turn from their more recent WWI-themed albums; Legends reaches back further in time, exploring "legendary" figures from various periods in history, from the ancient world to the Napoleonic Wars. Four of the songs are already up on their Bandcamp.

For a while now I've hoped that they would tackle some earlier historical subjects - I did like the WWI stuff, but it's a pretty big world out there. So I'm excited that this new album is going to have more variety.

Some of the subjects are obvious based on song title, but others not so much; luckily for us the subject is listed under the lyric pages for each song on Sabaton's website (here)

Track list:
01. Templars [Knights Templar]
02. Hordes of Khan [Ghengis Khan]
03. A Tiger Among Dragons [Lü Bu]
04. Crossing the Rubicon [Julius Caesar]
05. I, Emperor [Napoleon Bonaparte]
06. Maid of Steel [Jeanne d'Arc]
07. Impaler [Vlad Țepeș]
08. Lightning at the Gates [Hannibal Barca]
09. The Duelist [Miyamoto Musashi]
10. The Cycle of Songs [Senusret III]
11. Till Seger [Gustavus Adolphus]

Most of these people are familiar to me, but a few not so much; Lü Bu and Senusret III specifically. Looking forward to those songs, though! (I really should have recognized Lü Bu though)

I've been hoping for a song about the Three Kingdoms period for a while, so it's super cool that they're doing one, even if I'm slightly disappointed that it's not about my boy Kongming (cough). For the Egypt song, I'm kind of surprised that they went with Senusret III rather than Ramesses II, but either way, it's cool that they're doing something from Ancient Egypt. ...I'm a little disappointed that the Sweden song is about Gustavus Adolphus, because they've already done a song about him previously; I was hoping for Gustav Vasa instead. But who knows, maybe they'll do more Swedish history songs in the future.

So, what do I think of the four songs that have been released so far?
+ Templars: This sounds very cool. Very bombastic; great opening track for the album.
+ Hordes of Khan: Lots of energy here, continuing the energy from the first track. It hasn't stuck with me as much as I would like, but it'll grow on me.
+ Lightning at the Gates: I like this, but I feel like I've heard almost this exact same song on a different album. It's possible that I just had very high expectations for a song about Hannibal Barca, though. (But seriously, some parts of it hit the exact same beats as "Uprising"??? And some parts sound weirdly like "Hearts of Iron". Or is it just me?)
+ The Duelist: The lyrics are very cheesy, but then again this is Sabaton. It's got a fun rhythm!

Anyway. I'm very interested in what I hear so far, so I'm looking forward to the actual release! I really want to hear the song about Vlad Țepeș!!

Comments

[hokuton_punch]

Oooooh, I hope the Vlad song does not disappoint!

[yuuago]

I knooooow ahhh man I hope it's good. I almost wish I hadn't looked up anything about the album beforehand, because now I'm going to have Hopes and Dreams and Expectations! xD

[ireneultramarine]

I am surprised that they're gonna tackle 吕布 Lü Bu. He's not among the most iconic characters from the Three Kingdoms, unlike Zhuge Liang/Kongming (the ancient Chinese have too many names). Curious why they chose him and how that'll turn out XD

[yuuago]

I knoooow! I would've figured for Three Kingdoms they would do Kongming or Cao Cao or Liu Bei; Lü Bu seems a comparatively odd choice. ...lol I wonder if someone in the band is a fan of Dynasty Warriors or something and that's how they came across him. Regardless, hopefully the song will be good! xD

[ireneultramarine]

Personally, I wanna see someone do something about Zhou Yu/Gongjing. Death by jealousy of Kongming's "superior talent," at the age of 35? So over-the-top melodramatic that it's fascinating. (ETA: compare with Salieri and Mozart in pop culture, I think??)

Chinese-language media is oversaturated with Three Kingdoms stuff & it's always refreshing to see how creators outside of China do it. I don't really listen to Sabaton, but I wanna see their takeaways about Lü Bu as a character.

[yuuago]

Salieri vs Mozart is a really apt comparison for Zhou Yu vs Kongming and thank you Very Much for putting that in front of my eyeballs, I'll be rotating it in my mind for a week.

I'll be posting about it when it's released, so it'll come across your flist, I suppose!

I wish Three Kingdoms stuff was more well known over here - there's so much interesting stuff going on with it. (It feels weird saying "damn I wish this was more popular" about something that has so many explorations in the source language, to the point of oversaturation as you said. But. Eh.)

[kanadka]

Gustav Vasa's BDE is such that even Sabaton thinks twice about making a song about him 😤️😤️

jokes aside, I'm super excited to hear these!! :D

[yuuago]

Ahhh of course, why didn't I think of it, that's clearly the reason. ;)

Hopefully the not-yet-revealed songs will be total bangers!!