Sabaton

Forostar said:
I rather discover bands from oldest work to last instead of the other way. Like that I feel I value the originality of the old stuff more. I think it provides me a good perspective because it can show me a band's development.
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If I am coming upon the band from the beginning, or one or two albums in, I agree. But when I discover a band that has been around for awhile, I find that the newest material is the most refined and gives me a clear understanding of what type of artist they want to be. Once I appreciate the music in its most refined form, I can go back and see where it came from, truly appreciating the raw talent and power of the earlier albums.

For instance, when I first heard Iron Maiden, I heard "Run to the Hills" and "The Number of the Beast". Sorry to say, but those songs did not hook me. Here was a band that had been around for twenty years, and they seemed silly. Then I heard Brave New World, and everything changed. I worked my way through the back catalog and came to appreciate the greatest band ever. Opeth? First album I heard was Ghost Reveries. I probably wouldn't be as big of a fan if I was introduced to the band through Orchid. Symphony X was introduced to me with The Odyssey. Here was this epic pinnacle of prog-power metal that bordered on genius. Going all the way back through the catalog, I learned and came to love what lead up to it. If I first heard The Damnation Game or (god forbid) the self-titled, I probably wouldn't have given them a second thought.

This is obviously a situational argument based on when I first experience and enjoy a certain band. There's always something great about being with a band from the beginning and engaging with their new albums, but it just so happens that most of the bands I love started their careers before I was born or when I was too young to really find out about them.

Perun said:
I don't see what's wrong with the album. Lion from the North, Gott Mit Uns, A Lifetime of War, Carolus Rex, Poltava... all classic Sabaton material.
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:okok:
 
I think it's time to give Carolus Rex a spin!

TBH looking at the tracklisting the only ones that I can't remember offhand are 1648, Caroleans Prayer and Ruina Imperii
 
MrKnickerbocker said:
If I am coming upon the band from the beginning, or one or two albums in, I agree. But when I discover a band that has been around for awhile, I find that the newest material is the most refined and gives me a clear understanding of what type of artist they want to be.
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I am not sure how you can decide which album is their most refined when you've heard only one. Who knows it turns out to be the most recycled. ;--P

I think I used the word discovered in a wrong way. What I mean is that -when I want to learn a complete discography- I prefer to start at the beginning. It doesn't matter if a band started before I was born or not.

I think I used the word discovered in a wrong way. What I mean is that -when I want to learn a complete discography- I prefer to start at the beginning. It doesn't matter if a band started before I was born or not.

To be frank, I didn't always do that. In most other cases I didn't really think about it and it went random. In fact, when I look at bands who have released albums before I knew them, I can only mention two: Jethro Tull and Hawkwind. Still busy with both bands! I like it so much that I plan to do that in the future, if a band's discography might feel worthwhile. :)

I am always careful to start with the most "classic" or "best" albums. If I expect the last album to be the best, and/or the first to be the worst then I especially would prefer chronological order.

Personally, I don't think it's a good idea to start with "the best", because after that -in theory- it could become worse. If I really want to dive deep into a band, and fully appreciate what they did, I go for the whole discography. Chronological order or else: Start with the least rated albums, spend time on them (not just playing it once) and I'll learn to appreciate them (or not) when I'm hitting the more famous ones. These scapegoat albums could get better and better along the way so like this I could develop more tolerance for lesser successful works.
MrKnickerbocker said:
I probably wouldn't be as big of a fan if I was introduced to the band through Orchid.
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You can't know for sure. It could have helped appreciating grunts in general. And if not, then it's the grunt factor that upset you, not Opeth nor the order of listening (or are you saying you can appreciate Orchid since you know Opeth better?). And it's also possible that you could get into later Opeth work because you heard the news that Åkerfeldt became soft on his vocals (just kidding ;-). Anyway, there are many situations and directions. Each to his own. I prefer the "band development"-direction, if I have to choose between "going back" and "start from the beginning". Just my 2 cents!
 
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Forostar said:
I am not sure how you can decide which album is their most refined when you've heard only one. Who knows it turns out to be the most recycled. ;--P

I think I used the word discovered in a wrong way. What I mean is that -when I want to learn a complete discography- I prefer to start at the beginning. It doesn't matter if a band started before I was born or not.

Personally, I don't think it's a good idea to start with "the best", because after that -in theory- it could become worse. If I really want to dive deep into a band, and fully appreciate what they did, I go for the whole discography. Chronological order or else: Start with the least rated albums, spend time on them (not just playing it once) and I'll learn to appreciate them (or not) when I'm hitting the more famous ones. These scapegoat albums could get better and better along the way so like this I could develop more tolerance for lesser successful works.
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That's true, but I'll recognize the recycled material in the long run. I'm not exactly saying that a band's latest effort is their best, but it usually represents a musical evolution of some kind. I have become so tired of the rock and metal fan tendency to hate on new material, so I'm trying to combat it by embracing the later albums first. If everyone tells me Master of Puppets is amazing, and I listen to Master of Puppets and love it, then chances are I'm gonna have negative feelings towards Load/ReLoad or Death Magnetic. If I start with Death Magnetic and say, "this sounds cool", I'll probably still love Master of Puppets without cringing when I hear the new material.

If I start listening to a band that I am unsure of by checking out their least rated album, it might turn me off for good. I try not to research fan opinions too much before diving into a back catalog. It's best to be unaffected by other opinions before I form my own.

Forostar said:
You can't know for sure. It could have helped appreciating grunts in general. And if not, then it's the grunt factor that upset you, not Opeth nor the order of listening (or are you saying you can appreciate Orchid since you know Opeth better?). And it's also possible that you could get into later Opeth work because you heard the news that Åkerfeldt became soft on his vocals (just kidding ;-). Anyway, there are many situations and directions. Each to his own. I prefer the "band development"-direction, if I have to choose between "going back" and "start from the beginning". Just my 2 cents!
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I'm saying I can appreciate Orchid more after hearing what Opeth became. I'm not a death metal fan, I'm not a grunt fan, but I learned to like them in conjunction with Opeth's music. I absolutely prefer the Opeth albums that mix melodic vocals with death growl/grunts. Orchid and Morningrise show great potential, but if those were my first introduction to Opeth, I might not be interested enough to keep listening. But, you are correct, I'll never know for sure.
 
MrKnickerbocker said:
I'm saying I can appreciate Orchid more after hearing what Opeth became. I'm not a death metal fan, I'm not a grunt fan, but I learned to like them in conjunction with Opeth's music. I absolutely prefer the Opeth albums that mix melodic vocals with death growl/grunts.
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I feel the same way about Orchid and I discovered Opeth by using the Foro method of trying every album in order. My reaction to the first album was "Hey this is pretty cool" but it wasn't until BWP that I got hooked. At least for me, the order you listen to a band's catalog in doesn't have a huge affect. If you started with a band's worst album, then yea, I could see that. But still, if their sound is in tact you might be interested enough to try more anyway. One of my first Iced Earth albums was Dystopia and even though it's pretty bad I at least got an idea of what they sounded like and I figured it was enough to try more.
 
I dunno. With me it's the total experience that I want to "relive" "again". Line-up changes, stories, wiki-articles, YouTube clips etc. And some bands do change their style and I prefer to hear this gradually instead of lottery style (random). But I am afraid I took this a bit off-topic. Anyway, cool to read your point of views.
 
Back on topic, I checked out Art of War yesterday, seeing as I might see Sabaton with Iced Earth in May. It was surprisingly good! I didn't like the keyboards but everything else was cool, lots of neat riffs and I enjoyed the aggressive vocals. Definitely better than anything IE has done in the past 10+ years. I'll be checking out more ASAP.
 
No, but given that I don't normally listen to bands like Sabaton, it surprised me that I liked it as much as I did.
 
Just listened to Art of War and it's mostly awesome. There are some rather average/unmemorable tunes that will most likely grow on me in time, but overall a very good album. The three audio book narration tracks are really annoying filler, though. I'm with the quotes during the songs, but the others are just distracting. "A Secret" is so pointless.
 
Can someone explain the difference between the re-armed edition of Metalizer (or Metalizer in general) and Fist for Fight? They seem like virtually the same album.
 
MrKnickerbocker said:
Can someone explain the difference between the re-armed edition of Metalizer (or Metalizer in general) and Fist for Fight? They seem like virtually the same album.
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I think we already touched that subject in this thread. Fist for Fight is the Sabaton demo CD, while Metalizer was remixed (I think. I don't believe they rerecorded the songs, the production sounds way too crude for that) and contains some more songs. In any case I didn't find any of them to be of any significance.
 
Metalizer is a 2 CD release. One CD is Metalizer the full length album, the other one is Fist For Fight demo. Despite similar tracklist, they are 2 different recordings. Difference between original and re-armed editions of Sabaton albums are only bonus tracks. I don't think they remastered anything.

Hope we cleared this up for good now :p
 
Yeah, I've figured it out now. I guess I just wasn't clear on it because of the release date. So, Fist for Fight is a collection of demos and Metalizer is the album they wanted to release first (made up of mostly re-recorded versions of the FfF demos) but couldn't because of label interference.

Anyway, I listened to both yesterday. Other than a couple average songs, the music is pretty bad. "Masters of the World" is particularly cheesy.
 
After my first run through of the discography, here's how I rank the albums.

1. The Art of War
2. Attero Dominatus
3. Carolus Rex
4. Coat of Arms
5. Primo Victoria

I only gave Metalizer and Fist for Fight one brief listen, but nothing sounded too great. I doubt these rankings will change much once I finally give those two albums a fair shake.

On another note, I get that power metal and tru metal is unabashedly bombastic and ridiculous, but the "metal" themed songs on all of these albums are so incredibly bad. I had the idea of using band names and lyrics in a "we love metal!" song when I started my first band in eighth grade and vetoed it because it was stupid.
 
Primo Victoria the weakest? :(

My ranking would be:
1. Primo Victoria
2. The Art Of War
3. Attero Dominatus
4. Coat Of Arms
5. Carolus Rex
6. Metalizer/Fist For Fight

All this regenerated interest in Sabaton might end up in a Survivor if anyone's up for it... Didn't host anything in a while and I'm anxious to start again :D
 
I am planning to listen to all the albums in the upcoming weeks. I agree with Knick that Metalizer is not good.

I am up for a survivor indeed! Maybe we can even convince Perun :)
 
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