The largely narrated “Versailles” serves as the end of the story. It starts off with a Christmassy intro that is very reminiscent of – and probably based on – “Carol of the Bells.” When Brodén sings “Silence, I remember the silence,” it shows how the band has integrated the storytelling in this album on a new level, as it’s a very minimalistic moment where Brodén is only accompanied by the same piano melody the intro had.
This is paired with the wonderful “Christmas Truce,” which is easily one of the best songs that SABATON have released in their entire career. The atmosphere switches around again with “Valley of Death,” which not only has an incredibly hooky intro, that sort of serves as the lead melody the song has, it also has one of the best choruses on this record, easily memorable and just very powerful. She is the most-decorated female combatant in the recorded history of warfare, thus she definitely more than deserves to be honored in a song. She chose to go in his place – cutting her hair and donning men’s clothes and joining the Serbian army. In 1912, her brother received call-up papers for mobilization for the First Balkan War. One example is Milunka Savić, a Serbian war heroine who fought in the Balkan Wars and in World War I. The great thing about SABATON is that they also shed light on war heroes that we haven’t necessarily heard of. The line, “see a king and a soldier fighting shoulder by shoulder” is going to be a great moment live, where fans can shout along. The tempo slows down again with “Race to the Sea,” which seems to focus more on the story than on the music, by keeping it somewhat simple and straight-to-the-point a classic SABATON track that fans will surely love. “Hellfighters” must be one of the heaviest tracks that SABATON has ever put out, with a slight speed/thrash metal vibe to it and a dirty guitar solo.
The band switches things up again with “Soldier of Heaven.” Apart from the slightly slower tempo, the band introduces a clear flashback to the ’80s musically, where they have electronic elements layered underneath the song. On top of that, the band is doing something really interesting in the chorus, as someone else in the band shortly takes over the chorus vocals, while Brodén fills out different accents. Describing his experiences in the First World War, he wrote, “Frankly I had enjoyed the war.” The song definitely shares that same unstoppable energy that the Lieutenant-General seemed to have. According to Wikipedia, he was shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip, and ear was blinded in his left eye survived two plane crashes tunneled out of a prisoner-of-war camp and tore off his own fingers when a doctor declined to amputate them. “The Unkillable Soldier” is a personal highlight off this record, telling an incredible story about Adrian Carton de Wiart. During the chorus, the song also gets a bit of an ’80s vibe with keyboards subtly present in the background. The guitars ebb and flow along with the sound of waves, rocking slowly back and forth, yet very rhythmic.
An example of that is “Dreadnought” – Brodén starts with singing about the sea, which is something you also hear in the intro already before the vocals kick in. If there is one notable thing upon listening to this record, it’s that underneath all the power metal, there are some exquisite little details that bring the album as a whole to a new level, which overall, means that “The War to End All Wars” has a different feeling than SABATON’s prior work, yet is unmistakably still SABATON. The music continues with “Stormtroopers,” which has a more traditional power metal approach – up-tempo and dynamic, with a great pumping chorus. In the middle, there’s a great instrumental section, which includes a couple of impressive guitar solos. During the verses, a voiceover illustrates the events of what happened in Sarajevo grimly on top of some good old power metal, after which it is switched up with singer Joakim Brodén singing a chorus referring to the album’s title. The album begins with the intro “Sarajevo,” which tells the story of how the war started with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.