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Sabaton are a grammis-nominated power metal band from Falun, Sweden formed in 1999. The band's main lyrical theme is that of historical wars. This can be heard on the albums Primo Victoria and Attero Dominatus where all of the songs, except the final tracks, take inspiration from a historical battle or war, such as the song "Counterstrike", which refers to the Six-Day War.

Sabaton was formed in 1999. After the first songs were recorded in Peter Tägtgren's studio, The Abyss, Sabaton were contacted by a couple of record labels. The band decided to sign up for an Italian label who internationally released the promo CD Fist for Fight - including cover artwork by the legendary Ken Kelly (Manowar) - with the intention to promote forthcoming releases.

A year after the first recordings were made Sabaton returned with a début album Metalizer, again working with Peter Tägtgren. The album was recorded 2002 but had a five year delay before release in 2007. Metalizer is counted as their second album despite being the fourth album released.

Sabaton performed across Sweden, and after two years of waiting for the label to release Metalizer, Sabaton decided to record another album. But this time they would do it on their own, without the financial support of a record label.

The band returned a third album titled Primo Victoria and found themselves in negotiations with several international record labels. They eventually signed with Black Lodge, the metal division of Sound Pollution.

Their fourth album Attero Dominatus continued the war theme of Primo Victoria with songs like "Back in Control" (which focuses on the British liberation of the Falkland Islands during the Falklands War), "Attero Dominatus" (about the Battle of Berlin which brought about the end of World War II in Europe) and "Angels Calling" (about trench warfare during World War I), and was released in Europe on the 28th of July 2006.

In March 2007, Sabaton released Metalizer as a double disc together with Fist for Fight, along with the previously unreleased song "Birds of War".

As a follow up to Metalizer, in May 2008, Sabaton released The Art of War An album inspired by the influential book by Sun Tzu. The decision to base the album upon Sun Tzu's book came from the idea that in the 2000 years since the book was written, the human race has achieved many things but apart from weapon advancements, war and tactics have remained basically the same. The album contains the singles "Cliffs of Gallipoli" and "Ghost Division". The album has received extremely positive reviews so far.

In September 2008 it was announced that Sabaton will be performing at the 2009 ProgPowerUSA X festival in Atlanta GA USA. In addition, Sabaton were the first band confirmed for the festival Bloodstock '09 in Derby, UK. And furthermore, they toured Europe again in 2009 as guestband on the Hammerfall Tour. After their Bloodstock performance, the band announced they would be touring with DragonForce towards the end of 2009, for 18 shows in the UK.

The band has recently had their biggest success yet following the release of their latest album, The Art Of War. They also plan to release a DVD in the future. A concert on the 14th of June was recorded for DVD release along with other shows. Singer Joakim has stated his desire to release more than just a concert DVD, saying that his favourite band video footage is Pantera's home videos and would like the Sabaton DVD to be similar. The DVD will be released in December.

The band had hoped to begin recording the next album in October but with concerts booked and the DragonForce support tour the following month, this will have been pushed back. On Wednesday 23rd December the band announced the name of their forthcoming album, Coat of Arms, on their official website, and posted a link to a YouTube video containing the album art and a teaser music sample.

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