Sabaton
Coat of Arms (Nuclear Blast)

It’s safe to say that Sabaton would disagree with the famous Edwin Starr chorus: “War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing!” In fact, this Swedish power metal sextet has spent its entire career singing almost exclusively about military conflicts. If you can’t get into over-the-top, epic arrangements and a lyrical emphasis on the heroic side of battle rather than the ghastlier aspects of (mostly) World War II, clearly you’re not the target audience.

Sabaton’s sixth studio album simply refines the formula these ferocious Falun natives have used for more than a decade. Each of the 10 tracks is a compact, punchy assault. While keyboardist Daniel Mí¿hr’s monster synth hits ramp up the “Gladiator versus Lord of the Rings at the O.K. Corral” vibe, easily the most distinctive aspect of the band’s sound is the raspy yet operatic vocal style of Joakim Brodén. Not for him the twee dog-whistle pitches of, say, Helloween’s Michael Kiske. Brodén, a former church organist, rolls his Rs with such raw aplomb that even Bert Lahr, who belted out, “If I Were King of the Forest” as the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz, would have had to bow down, awestruck.

Musically, the group leans on the kind of bombastic, classically tinged catchiness that fans of Blind Guardian and Nightwish gobble up. The title track, propelled by Daniel Mullback’s charging-legions drums, has a sing-along chorus that rhymes “Hellas” and “Leonidas”: rarely has the battle of Thermopylae sounded this oddly appealing. “Uprising”, celebrating Polish resistance against the Nazis, augments its dinosaur-stomp groove with lyrical solos by guitarists Rikard Sundén and Oskar Montelius. It’s all powerfully executed, if a tad repetitive.

Apparently the band has found a spiritual home in Poland, where Coat of Arms debuted in the top 10, and where the band has performed live on an actual World War II battlefield. They had to twice postpone a video shoot for “Uprising” in Poland after the April plane crash that killed top Polish government officials. So if your dream vacation is a week in Warsaw and you can’t stop watching the History Channel, Coat of Arms just might blow you away.