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Against a backdrop of thrashing riffs and growling bombast, Swedish metal band Sabaton base their songs on historical military battles and true war-time stories. The band initially came together in 1999, but they were frustrated when their Italian record label Underground Symphony stalled on releasing their album, 'Metalizer', and so began creating a new sound. Taking inspiration from the invasion of Iraq which dominated the news at the time, they came up with the track 'Panzer Battalion', an explosive, power metal thunder storm that tells of armoured tanks of mass destruction. The idea developed and turned into the album 'Primo Victoria' (2005) which featured songs about German U-boats in WWII, the use of napalm in Vietnam and the Battle of Normandy, and helped them establish a large fan base across Europe. Their following albums 'Attero Dominatus' (2006) and 'The Art of War' (2008) continued the military theme, and the band started their own festival in their hometown of Falun as well as touring the US and the UK. The band went through a significant line-up change in 2012, but led by front man and songwriter Joakim Brodén and founding bass player Pär Sundström, they topped the Swedish charts with 'Heroes' (2014) and made the UK top 20 with their eighth studio album 'The Last Stand' in 2016. They released their ninth studio album 'The Great War' in July 2019.
Artist biography compiled by BDS/West 10. All rights reserved
