Primo Victoria is the debutstudio album by Swedish heavy metal bandSabaton. 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. 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. In 2010 the album was re-released on German label Nuclear Blast, with six additional bonus tracks, under the name Primo Victoria Re-Armed. The re-release reached 43rd place in the Swedish album charts.
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.
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".
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.
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. This collaboration resulted in the filming of a music video for the song "Primo Victoria", as well as the custom-painted Swedish ArmyCenturion tank featured in the video being made available for purchase in World of Tanks.
