Finland's SONATA ARCTICA have announced special shows for Latin-America to celebrate the band's 15th Anniversary. They have issued the following update:

"Next year, it's been 15 years since we released our debut album Ecliptica back in 1999. To honour this milestone we will play some special shows in Finland and Latin-America. These gigs will be extended shows with songs from the bands entire catalog. We might even throw in a couple of new songs from the upcoming album. See you on the road and a big cheers!"

Tour dates are as follows, venues will be confirmed soon:

March

6 - Monterrey, Mexico
7 - Mexico City, Mexico
9 - La Paz, Bolivia
11 - Lima, Peru
13 - Bogota, Colombia
15 - Brasilia, Brazil
16 - Belo Horizonte, Brazil
17 - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
18 - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
19 - Sao Paulo, Brazil
21 - Santiago, Chile
22 - Buenos Aires, Argentina
23 - Montevideo, Uruguay
25 - Neuquen, Argentina

More details will be revealed shortly.

The band's tour schedule for Finland is as follows:

January

29 - Circus - Helsinki, Finland
30 - Tamperetalo - Tampere, Finland
31 - Verkatehdas - Hämeenlinna, Finland

February

1 - Kerubi - Joensuu, Finland
8 - Radio Rock - Risteily, Finland
11 - Sibeliustalo - Lahti, Finland
12 - Lutakko - Jyväskylä, Finland
13 - Kylpylähotelli Rauhalahti - Kuopio, Finland
14 - Rytmikorjaamo - Seinäjoki, Finland
15 - Logomo - Turku, Finland

Sonata Arctica keyboardist Henrik Klingenberg recently checked in with the following update:

"Hola People! Just wanted to let you all know that we're alive and well and the new album is under work. We're really excited to enter the studio to start recording our new stuff. Enjoy the fall and keep the metal alive!"

Sonata Arctica recently released a video clip to their song ‘Alone In Heaven’, taken from their latest album, Stones Grow Her Name. Released on May 18, 2012 via Nuclear Blast, Stones Grow Her Name achieved gold status in the bands’ home country after just one week and additionally entered charts worldwide. Among those entries were the top 5 of Sweden Rock Charts (#5), Canada Rock Charts (#7) and UK Rock Charts (#9) and the record debuted at #9 of the US Billboard Heatseeker Charts.

Commented vocalist and keyboardist Tony Kakko: “’Alone In Heaven’ got sparked lyrically after I had suffered few personal losses in relatively short period of time. Those will make you think about a possibility of after life and such things. At least for me it was like that. I will always remember those passed on thru this song every time we play it. I was initially a little hesitant whether or not this is a suitable track for Sonata, being rather 'hard/soft rockish'. But the guys fell in love with it immediately and it fell right in on the quite mellow mooded Stones Grow Her Name album. I think it's a nice emotional rock song with some extremely beautiful parts to it. It has become a little bit of a fan favorite and crowd pleaser, being quite approachable and straight forward arrangement wise. Very live friendly track we'll surely play also in the future. The video is like the song, fairly simple and …soft. Enjoy.”