Pariah's Child

Finnish Melodic Metal outfit SONATA ARCTICA will release its new record »Pariah’s Child« on March 28, 2014 via Nuclear Blast. It will be the bands’ eight studio album and the follow up to their successful »Stones Grow Her Name«.

The predecessor to »Pariah’s Child«, which was out on May, 18th 2012 via Nuclear Blast, saw the band achieving gold status in their native Finland after just one week – their ninth gold disc so far. And also gaining global chart domination with some of the following entries: Finland #1, Sweden (Rock Charts) #5, Canada (Rock Charts) #7, UK Rock Charts #9 and Germany #24.

With »Pariah’s Child«, SONATA ARCTICA return to their metal roots, as Keyboardist Henrik “Henkka” Klingenberg states: “After leaning toward a more Hard Rock approach on the last album, we’re back to a Metal approach with this one. I would say is our definition of SONATA ARCTICA past and present. Of course we have a couple of oddball tracks but most of the stuff is straight forward Melodic Metal.

»Pariah’s Child« was recorded and produced by the whole band itself – without any outsiders being involved, apart from a couple of guest performances – and mixed by bassplayer Pasi Kauppinen. The mastering however will again be done at Chartmakers (AMORPHIS, KORPIKLAANI) in Helsinki.

Commented the band: “We knew from the start that we wanted to record in a more old school fashion, meaning that we all went to the studio together as opposed to the way we worked on the last three albums with everyone recording in different places and a lot of e-mailing being done. As the sessions progressed we knew that the right way to do it with this album, was to mix it amongst ourselves and have Pasi do it.”

Furthermore SONATA ARCTICA take a trip back to its own past, as far as the Artwork is concerned. Vocalist Tony Kakko explains his thoughts behind the album title and the artwork like this: “As always it's pretty hard coming up with a name for the new baby. I tried to approach it from many angles; how this is our 8th album and how easy it would be to abuse that fact. All the symbolism of figure eight, eternity and so on. But that just did not feel right as it's been done so many times. Then I started to think how we'd in ways abandoned our "totem animal", the wolf and all what comes with the territory. As the music on the album is bowing more towards the "old" Sonata, meaning more power metal style elements and wolves in many of the songs in one form or another, it was clear we need a wolf on the cover. An abandoned wolf. A pariah. Or Pariah's child, actually. The new generation to bring the old logo back.”

Right after the release of »Pariah’s Child«, SONATA ARCTICA will start touring again. Keyboard player Henrik “Henkka” Klingenberg left the following message: “The whole band is really looking forward to play some new songs for you and introduce our new bass player, Pasi, for all our fans. He’s a monster live, you’ll see. Check below for the tourdates and we’ll see you in a few months!”