Only Heavy Metal

2018-11-07 - It's been very silent in the band camp of Finnish melodic metal titans SONATA ARCTICA recently. But this break has been put to good use: the band has entered the studio to start the recording process for their tenth studio album, due in 2019 through Nuclear Blast. But before their new record will see the light of day, SONATA ARCTICA will embark on a special journey - their very first acoustic run across European soil! Support will be provided by special guests, Los Angeles, CA based metallers WITHERFALL.

On September 6th, Finnish melodic metal titans SONATA ARCTICA will release their tenth studio album, called »Talviyö« (which means »Winter Night«), including eleven new tracks.

"We were talking about having an album cover made from a photo and luckily managed to find this award winning photographer Onni Wiljami who actually hails from a village not too far from our hometown and his pictures were just perfect for this album", explains keyboardist Henrik "Henkka" Klingenberg.

"The idea was to create an album that is musically in line with at least the previous two albums", says vocalist Tony Kakko and adds: "I am very happy with the songs and the general mood of the album. Some career highlights there, I feel."

"We recorded a bunch of kick ass songs and tried some new stuff as well. I'm really proud of how we managed to record the band sounding more live, playing together instead of just tracking everything one by one", states Henrik "Henkka" Klingenberg.

"The song is lyrically somewhat a follow up for ”I Have A Right” and talks about the difficulty of making the right choices with the upbringing of a new human being", explains Tony Kakko.

»Talviyö« was recorded between September 2018 and May 2019, produced by Mikko Tegelman and SONATA ARCTICA in 'Studio57'. Additional recordings took place in various other places. "Mikko produced the album and he really managed to push us to do our best, even with the more experimental stuff. Working with an outside producer was the biggest new thing we tried this time", says Henrik "Henkka" Klingenberg.
The mixing was done by Mikko Tegelman and Pasi Kauppinen and the mastering was handled by Svante Forsbäck for 'Chartmakers'.

2021-03-31 - Finnish melodic metal titans SONATA ARCTICA are a band with a unique sound, driven by different emotions and a touch of melancholy. Today, the band announces the release of their first acoustic album, perfectly entitled "Acoustic Adventures - Volume One", to be released in October 2021 through Nuclear Blast Tonträger Produktions- und Vertriebs GmbH.

"This acoustic form of SONATA ARCTICA has been slowly brewing for years", comments vocalist Tony Kakko and explains: "The first manifestation of it, besides the few acoustic versions of songs released throughout the years, was the "Acoustic Adventures Tour" in 2019, which proved to be a great success, sparking an idea to get these songs also recorded and out on an album. Or two albums, at least for starters. Our songs have always been based on beautiful melodies, which makes it very easy to transform and rearrange them perfectly into the acoustic form as well. I should mention that many of the songs work so well dressed in acoustic garments."

"Acoustic Adventures - Volume One" will be the first part, followed by a second acoustic record, to be released in 2022. "I hope you love these albums as much as we do. There are many, many songs we had to leave out of these ”Volume One” and ”Volume Two” albums, so nothing would please me more than adding few more volumes in the future", smiles Tony Kakko and adds: "Looking forward to seeing you on tour again as soon as possible!"

And this tour is hopfully going to happen in autumn, entitled the "Acoustic Adventures MMXXI" tour. It’s been a while since SONATA ARCTICA toured Europe, the last time being in 2019. To promote their "Acoustic Adventures - Volume One" release, the band will embark on a journey through 17 European countries! Support will be provided by Swedish hopefuls ELEINE, who will also be presenting an acoustic set. Keyboardist Henrik “Henkka” Klingenberg comments: "Since our Talviyö World Tour is more or less over, it's time to look ahead for the next challenge and since we've had so much fun with the acoustic stuff we decided to make an album as well, and of course we will hit the road immediately after that to celebrate the release of it. As of now we have managed to set up an extensive European Tour and we're really looking forward to getting out there an play some music for all of you."

Finnish melodic metal icons SONATA ARCTICA should be closing their »Acoustic Adventures« European tour this week. Unfortunately, it had to be postponed to late 2022 (the band’s extensive live itinerary can be found below!) due to obvious reasons. But fans need not worry as the band are bringing some cozy living room concert atmosphere to their homes in the form of the first part of their two-piece »Acoustic Adventures« album, due out on January 21st, 2022 via Atomic Fire.

Comprising acoustic adaptions of twelve tracks leading through SONATA ARCTICA‘s discography, »Acoustic Adventures – Volume One« was recorded and produced by Mikko Tegelman and the band at Studio57, Finland; Tegelman was also responsible for the album’s mix and mastering alongside bass player Pasi Kauppinen. The artwork by the quintet’s longtime collaborator and fellow countryman, Janne Pitkänen (NIGHTWISH, AURI etc.) rounds off the total experience charmingly.

States keyboardist Henrik “Henkka” Klingenberg: “‘The Rest Of The Sun Belongs To Me’ was a song that first appeared as a bonus track for Japan back in 2003, just around the time I joined the band. When we started to arrange songs for the second »Acoustic Adventures« tour in 2019, this song somehow kept popping up and we decided to give it a go. Our dear friend Masi Hukari who joined us on stage for the tour did a lot of the work on this particular arrangement and I think that his input was really important in how this song turned out. For this record, we used the live arrangement as a starting point and I don’t think the song changed that much, so what you hear is a slightly refined version of the 2019 tour arrangement. We decided to use this song as the first single since it’s really different from the original studio version and as always, we prefer to offer something new and interesting for our fans and for ourselves as well.”