It also isn’t hard to see why the history-loving Swedes, with their unbridled, While their lyrics have always emphasised the futility of war and been critical of the historical “bad guys”, the very notion of writing overblown metal songs about subjects like the Holocaust (see 2010’s The Final Solution – “Sent away on trains, sent on a one way trip to hell/ Enter the gates, Auschwitz awaits”) or the rise of the Third Reich (2006’s Rise of Evil) doesn’t sit entirely comfortably, particularly for a band whose stock-in-trade is clunky lyrics, lurid pulp novel-style cover art, and a more than faint dose of ridiculousness. Sabaton were sure to provoke controversy before long.

It transpired that already, back in 2021, plans for the band to be involved in celebrations of the 500th anniversary of the Swedish Royal Guard were cancelled because of the Sevastopol gig. The band’s bassist and co-founder, Pär Sundström, had also commented of Crimea: “All these years they have felt like Russians but been treated like a small piece of Ukraine.” VoF announced a review of their award and the band were removed from a playlist created for the 2023 Swedish Presidency of the EU Council. It soon emerged that, in the summer ofĢ015, Sabaton played at a lavish gala in Sevastopol, in annexed Crimea, staged by pro-Putin biker gang the Night Wolves. Town of Falun and an annual cruise of the Baltic under their banner, SabatonĬan claim to be not just a band but a fully fledged phenomenon, and the award just confirmed yet another dimension to their already unique oeuvre.īut things have quickly turned sour.

Germany, and Switzerland, and both their own music festival in their home With four No 1 albums in their native Sweden, chart-topping LPs in Austria,

VoF chairman Pontus Böckman commented: “In a world where we are flooded with fake news and conspiracy theories, fact-checked information is delivered from the last place many would have expected – a hard rock band.” Vetenskap och Folkbildning (VoF) (The Society for Science and Folk Education – the Swedish sceptics association) named Sabaton “Folk Educator of the Year 2022”. Now Sabaton have been rewarded for their educational efforts.

New sabaton album 2016