SONATA ARCTICA To Play San Francisco In February

Finnish melodic metallers SONATA ARCTICA — whose third North American tour begins September 12 in Fort Worth, Texas and includes a headlining performance at the ProgPower USA VIII festival in Atlanta, Georgia — are planning on returning in February 2008 for another batch of dates that will cover mostly Canada and will include some U.S. shows. One date has already been leaked for the trek: February 18, 2008 at Slim's in San Francisco, California.

SONATA ARCTICA recently parted ways with guitarist Jani Liimatainen and replaced him with Elias Viljanen.

The band's new album, "Unia", was certified gold in Finland for sales in excess of 15,000 copies. This brings the band's total number of gold albums to seven, with their debut LP, "Ecliptica", and "best-of" compilation, "The Collection", reaching gold status in the past few weeks.

Recorded and mixed at Finnvox Studios in Helsinki, "Unia" — which has been available in North America since May 22 — landed on the following international album charts: Finland - #1; Japan - #7; Sweden - #27; Germany - #35; Switzerland - #40; Austria - #62. The "Paid in Full" single also secured the #1 single position in the band's native land.

SONATA's tour dates can be found at this location.