The Attack of the Dead Men is the fourth song on the The Great War album by Sabaton.
Information[]
- The band had the idea to make this song for a long time.
- The idea for this song's story was sent by fans.
- This song was the longest one to write on The Great War.
- The band had the song since 2013, but couldn't finish it neither for Heroes, nor for The Last Stand. Also the topic didn't fit the Heroes album theme.
- The song was released in 2020 as a single.
- During their concert in Moscow in March 2020, Sabaton performed the song with Radio Tapok, who sang the verses in Russian.
Background[]
Chris Rörland: "I already had an idea for Heroes, which has now become Attack of the Dead Men. That riff was created then, but we couldn't finish the idea. There were some pieces missing and we just couldn't find what the song needed. So we put it aside, it would have sounded very strange on Heroes. Then it was time to work on The Last Stand and I got another idea that we were working on, that eventually evolved into the title track. In addition, we also looked at Attack of the Dead Men again, saw that we couldn't finish it and said "leave it".
And then this record: fuck it, it's been dragging on for eight years (sic), we have to finish it. No idea how many hours it took us, day and night. And then suddenly... (snaps fingers) it clicked! This was it!"
Joakim: "(...) the song ‘Attack of the Dead Men’ was started by me and Chris back in 2013 for the Heroes album. We just couldn't get that prechorus right at all so we halted it. We revisited it again for The Last Stand, and we couldn’t finish it, so we revisited it again now, and, oh!, we finally managed to finish it."[1]
Pär: "(...) It was originally intended for the album Heroes in 2014, but did not fit in."[2]
Pär: "(...)The Attack of the Dead Men is one that we really wanted to do for many years now. (...)"[3]
Pär: "'Attack of the Dead Men', that is purely created by a story sent in by our fans."[4]
Joakim: "We chose to use throughout the choruses and the intro, almost what people would consider electronic music, synth, and it’s such a nice addition – it’s soemthing new that doesn't belong, like poison gas itself, it doesn’t belong so it gives the song a sort of uneasy feeling."[5]
Pär: "The Attack of the Dead Men" which is a song about the attacks with poison and gas and how the soldiers looked like after these horrible attacks, like zombies actually, so therefore this title. This song was originally written for the ‘Heroes’ album but now it ended up on ‘The Great War’, musically speaking a very interesting track."[6]
Joakim: "(...) we are aware that our music is relatively visual. Then we also try to arouse curiosity through our project, whether it is music or lyrics. Why did you put there such a bass line, such a riff... For example, the song 'The Attack Of The Dead Men' is a title that talks about the use of gas during battles and there are some electronic passages that some will say they have nothing to do on a rock album, and it gives something that means something is going wrong there, so we transpose this story into music. "[7]
Historic fact[]
During the Battle of Osowiec Fortress in 1915, German Field Marshal Paul Von Hindenburg ordered the bombardment of the fortress with an artillery barrage of chlorine gas to eradicate the 900 Russian defenders. After the bombardment 7,000 German soldiers advanced upon the fortress expecting little to no resistance when 100 disfigured Russians, coughing up blood and pieces of their own lungs, surprised the Germans with a counter-charge. The zombie-like Russians opened fire and attacked the Germans with affixed bayonets causing mass panic and forced the Germans to flee back into their own traps inflicting more casualties. The remaining Russian defenders who survived the gas attacks seized the opportunity to raze the fortress and withdraw while the Germans hesitated. "The Attack of the Dead Men" spawned German legends about unkillable Russian soldiers rising from the dead to fight. (by Joe Arino)[8]
Live[]
- The song was a staple on The Great Tour.
- The song was performed with the History Edition intro played from the tape.
- At the beginning of the song, Chris, Pär and Tommy wore gas masks which they took off before the first chorus.
- Joakim was wearing a gas mask through the whole song and sang with a single-earpiece headset microphone with the gas mask on. He also had a German WWI coat and a smoke-machine on his back that imitated the poison gas thrower.
- During the concert in Moscow in 2020, Radio Tapok sang the verses in Russian and was wearing a WWI Russian uniform along with the blood-stained rags near the mouth.
Lyrics[]
| Attack of the Dead Men |
Turmoil at the front |
| Attack of the Dead Men (feat. Radio Tapok) |
На востоке гром, |
Official Music Video[]
