SONATA ARCTICA have announced the following North American tour dates:

April

2 - The Trocadero - Philadelphia, PA
3 - The Palladium - Worcester, MA
5 - The Blender Theater @ Gramercy - New York, NY
6 - Imperial de Quebec - Quebec City, QC
7 - Club Soda - Montreal, QC
9 - The Opera House - Toronto, ON
10 - Blondie’s - Detroit, MI
11 - House of Blues - Chicago, IL
12 - Station 4 - St. Paul, MN
13 - The West End Cultural Center - Winnipeg, MB
15 - Warehouse - Calgary, AB
16 - Starlite Room - Edmonton, AB
18 - The Venue - Vancouver, BC
19 - El Corazon - Seattle, WA
20 - Peter’s Room - Portland, OR
23 - The Galaxy Theatre - Santa Ana, CA
24 - House of Blues - Hollywood, CA
25 - U.B’s Bar - Mesa, AZ
27 - Emo’s - Austin, TX
28 - Meridian - Houston, TX
29 - The Marquee - Tulsa, OK
30 - The Masquerade - Atlanta, GA

May

1 - Volume 11 - Raleigh, NC
2 - Jaxx Nightclub - W. Springfield, VA

Sonata Arctica guitarist Elias Viljanen and keyboardist Henrik Klingenberg are featured in a new video interview conducted by Italian website SpazioRock.it back in November during the band's European tour. Check it out below.

BW&BK; scribe Carl Begai recently caught up with frontman Tony Kakko to discuss the band's new album, The Days Of Grays. An excerpt from the story is available below:

“Unia was a huge shock for some people, but it was something we really needed to do,” states Kakko. “We gained a lot of new fans with that album and we won’t be going back to our old direction, as you can hear on the new album. There are actually one or two songs that could have appeared on the Reckoning Night album, though. I think this new album is much easier to get into than Unia.”

The Days Of Grays screams of a Unia II. Beginning with a three minute instrumental, the album kicks into gear with the eight minute symphonic-prog piece ‘Deathaura’, a track sporting Blind Guardian epic stripes coupled with present day Nightwish bombast. Admittedly, a very strong tune in spite of sounding nothing like the Sonata Arctica of old.

“When I write songs it’s always an adventure; I have no idea where I’m going with it,” Kakko says. “I just do what comes naturally and what feels good. That song is a case of something small and beautiful turning into something huge and massive and epic. It started out as a tiny song with a guitar, piano, and one vocal line, but at some point I started adding stuff to it. Suddenly it’s eight minutes long (laughs). The song wrote itself, basically. I never take anything out, and that’s probably my downfall (laughs). I just keep writing as long as I can.”

Go to this location for the complete story.