Sonata Arctica at Stage 48

Elias Viljanen, Pasi Kauppinen, Tony Kakko

Sonata Arctica began in 1995 as a hard rock band named Tricky Beans in the forested northern hamlet of Kemi, Finland (population: 23,000). Tricky Beans released three demos. By 1997, the band gravitated towards power metal, renamed itself Tricky Means and released a fourth demo. The demo consisted of fast, melodic metal with heavy keyboards and clean high vocals. Finally the band renamed itself Sonata Arctica upon signing a record contract in 1999: "sonata" for the music and "arctica" for their home (northern Finland). This latest transformation emphasized keyboard melodies and an easily distinguishable rhythm line maintained both by the bass and the guitar. Sonata Arctica's current line-up consists of singer, keyboardist and songwriter Tony Kakko, guitarist Elias Viljanen, bass guitarist Pasi Kauppinen, keyboardist and keytarist Henrik Klingenberg, and drummer Tommy Portimo. Portimo is the only remaining member from the original band, although Kakko has been in since 1996. Sonata Arctica has eight albums; the most recent, Pariah's Child, was released on March 28, 2014. Sonata Arctica also re-recorded its debut Ecliptica album as Ecliptica - Revisited (15th Anniversary Edition), scheduled for imminent release.

Tonight at Stage 48, Sonata Arctica showed a 21st century audience what 20th century metal was like. Radio-friendly melodic songs featured strong, high, sometimes shrilling vocals and clean guitar leads. Some songs offered a wisp of symphonic metal or progressive arrangements, and the set included several power ballads. In today's metal world of growling vocals, breakdowns and distorted guitar sounds, Sonata Arctica might be considered soft metal, but this was the state of heavy metal in the days before thrash and death metal. While this more traditional brand of heavy metal has not dominated the market since the 1980s, Sonata Arctica's small audience seemed to bring twice the enthusiasm of a larger audience. Sonata Arctica commanded the sound perfectly. It would have been virtually impossible to hear the difference between Sonata Arctica and a veteran classic-metal arena band.

Visit Sonata Arctica at www.sonataarctica.info.