Anthony Morgan at Metal Forces Magazine recently spoke with SONATA ARCTICA frontman Tony Kakko to discuss the band's new album, Stones Grow Her Name. An excerpt from the story is available below:

“If you compare Reckoning Night (September 2004) and then the following album Unia (May 2007), the difference was quite considerable. We did some more progressive and complex songwriting, and playing and everything. In a certain way you also have that on the follow-up album The Days Of Grace, which was also fairly progressive. While we were actually recording that album, I started to feel that we had gone far enough with progressive music. It was time to take another turn, and step away from that a little bit. The step we took with Stones Grow Her Name (May 2012) is as big as the one we took with Unia. We used to be a rock band which then turned into this power metal band, and now in many ways we’ve come full circle.”

Although Stones Grow Her Name favours more straightforward song structures, the frontman is still nonetheless pleased with Sonata Arctica’s more progressive material as displayed on the likes of Unia. “Unia I still think is a very good album,” he stresses. “It was just an artistic catharsis. I wrote that album for myself spiritually. I didn’t think anything about what the fans would think; it was just all about me and the band, and the way we could continue with the band. Our first album was Ecliptica (November 1999) and we’ve been morphing and changing our style slowly, taking larger steps with Unia and now with Stones Grow Her Name. It’s a big step. I’m proud of all the things we have done, because our musical catalogue has started to become quite wide. We can appeal to so many different types of people and tastes with our music. I don’t know. It’s an adventure. I’ve always liked QUEEN a lot, and they did different things in their time.

“They were just the first band to interest me in a big way. It must’ve been about 85’, ’86 when I saw their live show on Finnish television. I had not even heard of them before that. I was 10 or 11 years old at the time, and I just fell in love with that band. They wrote fantastic music. At that point they had already released so many albums, so there was so much new for me to learn. It was my first love, so it never fades away. They still are my favourite band. They have done some great art, and then not so great art. If you take a step back and look back at your whole career and all the albums you’ve released, they’re tiny steps and make the whole band more powerful.”

Go to this location for the complete story.

Sonata Arctica's new album, Stones Grow Her Name, features the following tracklisting:

'Only The Broken Hearts (Make You Beautiful)'

'Shitload of Money'

'Losing My Insanity'

'Somewhere Close To You'

'I Have A Right'

'Alone In Heaven'

'The Day'

'Cinderblox'

'Don't Be Mean'

'Wildfire II'

'Wildfire III'

The official Mobile Songpier app for Stones Grow Her Name is available at this location.

Watch the video for ‘I Have A Right’ below: