Sonata Arctica announce new album

Finnish melodic metal quintet SONATA ARCTICA are returning with their brand new album The Ninth Hour. 

The first in two years since the acclaimed Pariah’s Child, The Ninth Hour will be SONATA ARCTICA‘s ninth release, which is set to come out October 7th via Nuclear Blast.

Speaking about the recording process of The Ninth Hour singer Tony Kakko said, “The studio work for the new record started seriously in mid-April 2016 in several home studios around Finland. But the main recording and mixing took place at the Studio57 in Alaveteli, Finland. It functions as a kind of centre point and all work finally ends up there. We aimed to create another melodic, beautiful, surprising SONATA ARCTICA album… Did it turn out that way? I surely think so. But maybe I should leave that for you to decide! 

“The artwork of our ninth studio album The Ninth Hour depicts a future utopian landscape. Nature and human technologies are balanced. In the middle we have an hour glass contraption with a knob for us to meddle with. The right-hand side cup represents the nature side with no humans left, on the left we have the human dystopia after we have destroyed nature. The idea I had was, that turning the knob will tilt the hour glass in one direction or another, and the other cup will slowly empty and that future will be erased. Biblically we are expected to repent and sacrifice on The Ninth Hour…to dive right back to a more mundane reality, it’s a fact that we are currently living in critical, historical times. Our decisions will define the future. Not only ours as a race, but the future of this entire planet. We need to make sacrifices and in many cases we will repent our already made choices.”

Check out the artwork for The Ninth Hour below:

You can see SONATA ARCTICA and their label mates TWILIGHT FORCE in the UK when they play London’s Shepherds Bush Empire on October 15th. Tickets are available here:

October 15th – London, Shepherds Bush Empire

The Ninth Hour is set for release on October 7th via Nuclear Blast Records.

For more information on SONATA ARCTICA, check out their official page on Facebook.