Concerts: Sonata Arctica To Tour North America This Fall

Finland's Sonata Arctica will return to tour North America this Fall (September / October '09) as direct support to British epic power metallers Dragonforce. Opening each night of the tour will come from Las Vegas' Taking Dawn.

Of their North America dates, six are headlining dates (without Dragonforce) - September 17 at The Jumping Turtle, San Marcos, CA; October 12, Webster Theater, Hartford, CT; October 13, Rex Theater, Pittsburgh, PA, October 15, Music Hall, London, Ontario, CA; October 16, Peabody's, Cleveland, OH; October 17, Uncle Pleasants, Louisville, KY; and October 18, Rave, Milwaukee, WI.

In early May 2009, Sonata Arctica issued the following update:

"Many... OK, let's not kid ourselves here, but at least some of you wonder how the [new Sonata Arctica] album is progressing. So far the drums, bass and rhythm guitars are done. Some weeks ago we had a meeting with the boys and among other things we decided which songs are going to be on the album and in what order. Hell yeah!! So we're right on schedule and .... still have a couple of weeks until the mixing starts. Those dear days will be spent on working out the keyboard tracks, Tony's [Kakko] got a bunch of vocals left to do, we're still waiting on some guest 'tracks, etc. All in all we're once again excited as hell about the new stuff and if everything goes well you'll have a new Sonata album in your hands next fall."

Klingenberg previously described the new Sonata Arctica material as "a bit darker and maybe not so complex as [2007's] Unia. Nevertheless, it's definitely not a back-to-the-roots album with fast power metal. All the trademark Sonata stuff is on there, solos, lots of singing some slower songs."

Members of Sonata Arctica recently joined forces with Dark Tranquillity members to form Rockstars of Poker, a poker team which aims to give fans a chance to meet their heroes while playing poker online.

Rockstars of Poker works together with Betfriends.com and gives everyone a chance to challenge the team totally free. In addition to the prizepool sponsored by Betfriends.com, whoever kicks any of the team members out of each tournament gets special band-related prizes.

Rockstars of Poker co-founder Henrik Klingenberg (of Sonata Arctica) explains: "Me and Marko (Paasikoski, Sonata Arctica ) and Martin (Brandstrom) as well as Martin (Henriksson, both of Dark Tranquillity) met over a couple of beers at a festival in Italy last summer and found out that we're all really into poker. Later we stayed in touch and at some point a poker playing friend of ours asked us why we don't have our own tournaments."

As both bands have gotten several requests for chat meetings and different online interaction with their fans, they decided to join forces and combine a dear hobby with a little bit of "work."

"Instead of just chatting online which is not really our thing (mind you, we're a bunch of rock dudes in our 30, who like beer), we thought that we might as well play some poker while we meet up with whoever has something they want to know....or say," says Klingenberg.

"The best thing is that it's totally free for everyone so you really don't have to be good at poker, but you still have a chance to win some money and prizes as well as ask us anything, so everybody wins."

Log on to www.rockstarsofpoker.info to find out how to register.

On July 9, the band unveiled the new artwork, track listing as well as the album title of their forthcoming album. [Great artwork; view it larger here at the SA website -ed.]

The Days Of Grays will see a worldwide release (excluding Asia) through Nuclear Blast Records on September 18th, 2009 (September 16th in Finland and September 22nd in the USA).

Formats / track listing:

Ltd. 2CD-Digipak:

01. Everything Fades To Gray (Instrumental)
02. Deathaura
03. The Last Amazing Grays
04. Flag In The Ground
05. Breathing
06. Zeroes
07. The Dead Skin
08. Juliet
09. No Dream Can Heal A Broken Heart
10. As If The World Wasn't Ending
11. The Truth Is Out There
12. Everything Fades To Gray (full version)

Bonus Track:

13. In The Dark

Bonus CD: track listing TBA.

CD Jewelcase:

01. Everything Fades To Gray (Instrumental)
02. Deathaura
03. The Last Amazing Grays
04. Flag In The Ground
05. Breathing
06. Zeroes
07. The Dead Skin
08. Juliet
09. No Dream Can Heal A Broken Heart
10. As If The World Wasn't Ending
11. The Truth Is Out There
12. Everything Fades To Gray (full version)

[Source: Nuclear Blast, Sonata Arctica website]