Italy's SpazioRock has issued an interview with SONATA ARCTICA frontman Tony Kakko. An excerpt is available below:

Q: (New album) Stones Grow Her Name is a straightforward album like the first ones, but it sounds modern like Unia. What’s the reason of this choice, almost the opposite of The Days Of Grays?

A: "We were all starting to feel that we have gone far enough with this “progressive” way of expressing ourselves, and it was time to try something else. We figured it would be actually fun to play songs, live also, that are not like sporting competitions every time you do it, but it would be simple and fun, and people would enjoy listening to these songs as much as we enjoy doing them. There are songs in the previous two albums that are just impossible to play live, so many things happening there, we have only five members in the band, so it’s impossible to do them the right way. And now for these new songs we can just take two acoustic guitars, sit in bar with a glass of whisky and start playing and singing! That was the idea, to write songs that can be easily adapted in a different environment and don’t even require electricity, we can just light a candle and start playing these songs acoustically. It is necessary, in my opinion to be able to continue our career for a really long long time so that we won't have enough of playing these songs even when we are sixty years old or something, even older than THE ROLLING STONES guys. That would be a dream come true actually."

Read the full interview at this location.

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.