Primo Victoria

Primo Victoria (Latin, "Foremost, Victory")[2] is the debut studio album by Swedish heavy metal band Sabaton.

Primo Victoria
Studio album by Sabaton
Released	15 March 2005 (original edition) 24 September 2010 (Re-Armed edition)
Recorded	August - November 2004
Studio	The Abyss, Pärlby, Sweden
Genre	Heavy metal, power metal[1]
Length	41:05
Label	Black Lodge Records
Producer	Tommy Tägtgren
Sabaton chronology
Fist for Fight (2000) Primo Victoria (2005) Attero Dominatus (2006)

The band had previously recorded the full length album Metalizer with Italian label Underground Symphony, but due to conflicts its release was delayed until 2007.[3] Primo Victoria instead became Sabaton's debut album, recorded in 2004 in Abyss Studios, and released the following year with their new label, Black Lodge Records.[4]

In 2010 the album was re-released on German label Nuclear Blast, with six additional bonus tracks, under the name Primo Victoria Re-Armed.[5] The re-release reached 43rd place in the Swedish album charts.[6]

Lyrics theme

It was during the writing of Primo Victoria that Sabaton arrived at their since then ever-present use of song lyrics themed on war history. According to singer Joakim Brodén, he and bass player Pär Sundström had written the music for the title track, but were missing lyrics. Because they felt the song had a "big sound", they wanted a big subject, and chose the allied invasion of Normandy during World War II. Having to do some research on the historic events, they decided they liked the meaning that the subject added to the song, and decided to give the whole album a war history theme.[7][8]

Track listing

All music is composed by Brodén.

No.	Title	Lyrics	Theme	Length
1.	"Primo Victoria"	Brodén, Sundström	Operation Overlord from the allied perspective	4:10
2.	"Reign Of Terror"	Brodén, Sundström	Saddam Hussein and Operation Desert Storm	3:51
3.	"Panzer Battalion"	Brodén	Operation Iraqi Freedom and the American armored battalion that led the invasion.	5:09
4.	"Wolfpack"	Brodén	Wolfpack Hecht's attack on Convoy ON 92 in the Battle of the Atlantic	5:55
5.	"Counterstrike"	Brodén, Sundström	The Six-Day War	3:48
6.	"Stalingrad"	Brodén	The Battle of Stalingrad	5:18
7.	"Into The Fire"	Brodén, Sundström	The use of napalm in the Vietnam War from the American perspective	3:25
8.	"Purple Heart"	Sundström	Service members that were Wounded In Action and thus awarded the Purple Heart	5:07
9.	"Metal Machine"	Brodén	A tribute to heavy metal	4:22
Total length:				41:05

Re-armed edition bonus tracks

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
10.	"The March to War"		1:21
11.	"Shotgun"	Brodén	3:14
12.	"Into The Fire (Live In Falun 2008)"	Brodén, Sundström	4:08
13.	"Rise of Evil (Live In Falun 2008)"	Brodén	8:03
14.	"The Beast" (Twisted Sister cover)	Dee Snider	3:11
15.	"Dead Soldier's Waltz"		1:21
Total length:			21:18

Album line-up

• Joakim Brodén – lead vocals and keyboard
• Rickard Sundén – guitar and backing vocals
• Oskar Montelius – guitar and backing vocals
• Pär Sundström – bass guitar
• Daniel Mullback – drums

"Second Battalion" and "Amphibious Battalion"

The band was commissioned by members of the Norwegian Army 2nd Battalion to make an alternative version of Panzer Battalion. The alternate version, called Second Battalion, differs only in that the lyric "Second Battalion" is sung in place of "panzer battalion".[9]

The band also later created another alternate version of Panzer Battalion named Amphibious Battalion for the Swedish marines fighting in Chad as a part of EUFOR.

Covers

• German a cappella metal group van Canto covered "Primo Victoria" on their fourth studio album Break the Silence in 2011, with Sabaton frontman Joakim Brodén appearing as a guest vocalist and in the music video.[10]

Cross-promotion with Wargaming

As part of Nuclear Blast's 30th anniversary, in 2017, Sabaton announced through their website that they were beginning a long-term collaboration with Wargaming. The band stated they often play World of Tanks between shows.[11] This collaboration resulted in the filming of a music video for the song "Primo Victoria", as well as the custom-painted Swedish Army Centurion tank featured in the video being made available for purchase in World of Tanks.[12]

References

1. https://powermetal.de/review/review-Sabaton/Primo_Victoria,5220.html
2. "Lewis & Short". perseus.uchicago.edu.
3. Sweden, Sveriges Television AB, Stockholm. "Sabaton – med krig som tema". svt.se (in Swedish). Retrieved 2017-10-07.
4. "Sabaton - Primo Victoria". Discogs. Retrieved 2017-10-07.
5. "Primo Victoria - Re-Armed by SABATON - info and shop at Nuclear Blast - Nuclear Blast". www.nuclearblast.de. Retrieved 2017-10-06.
6. Hung, Steffen. "swedishcharts.com - Sabaton - Primo victoria". swedishcharts.com. Retrieved 2017-10-06.
7. "Interview: Sabaton's Frontman Joakim Brodén | Spotlight Report "The Best Entertainment Website in Oz"". spotlightreport.net. Retrieved 2017-10-07.
8. "Interview - Joakim Brodén of Sabaton - Cryptic Rock". crypticrock.com. Retrieved 2017-10-07.
9. "Sabaton - Trivia - Metal Storm". www.metalstorm.net. Retrieved 2017-10-07.
10. "Van Canto "Break The Silence" About The Nuances Of "Rakkatakka" And The Origins Of "Power A Cappella Metal"". Metalunderground.com. 16 September 2011. Retrieved 7 August 2018.
11. Sabaton (12 June 2017). "World of Tanks collaborates with Swedish Heavy Metal Band SABATON!". Sabaton.net. Retrieved 5 January 2018.
12. "SABATON Releases New 'World of Tanks' Music video for 'Primo Victoria'". Blabbermouth.net. 16 August 2017. Retrieved 5 January 2018.

External links

• Primo Victoria at MusicBrainz
• "Primo Victoria" music video on Nuclear Blast's YouTube channel
• Primo Victoria music video and lyrics on Blogul lui Laivindur website