Judging by their progress so far, Sonata Arctica is in for becoming one of the greats. It has been more than convincing to see how the band has, in the course of just half a decade, advanced from playing in tiny venues that hold little more than a couple of hundred of people to touring with such names as Iron Maiden and Nightwish. If you want know how it feels when you're playing as loud as you can but still cannot hear your own instruments due to the Brazilian audience who sings along even louder, just ask Sonata Arctica.
The roots of Sonata Arctica's style lie in the 1980s power metal and in such names as Helloween and Stratovarius, but by now they have outsucceeded their spiritual fathers and gained a following of their own. This is perhaps because they are not your standard power metal band: although their music follows the genre's traditions, their lyrics have during the last few years fared forth even further to the direction of romantic storytelling. The distance between the traditional heroic tales and fantasy images of power metal on the one hand and the love stories of today on the other hasn't been too long for Sonata to travel, even if they prefer not to give up their trademark speed even when they sing about fairytales and dreamlands.
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