SONATA ARCTICA: 'Stones Grow Her Name' First-Week Sales Revealed

May 30, 2012

"Stones Grow Her Name", the new album from Finnish melodic metallers SONATA ARCTICA, sold around 2,100 copies in the United States in its first week of release. The CD landed at position No. 9 on the Top New Artist Albums (Heatseekers) chart, which lists the best-selling albums by new and developing artists, defined as those who have never appeared in the Top 100 of The Billboard 200.

"Stones Grow Her Name" has been certified gold in the band's home country for sales in excess of 10,000 copies. Released in Europe on May 18 and in North America on May 22 via Nuclear Blast Records, the CD was recorded in several studios all over Finland, mixed at Sonic Pump Studios by Mikko Karmila and mastered at Chartmakers by Svante Forsbäck. The effort was released as a limited-edition digipak, standard jewel case, vinyl and download.

"Stones Grow Her Name" track listing:

01. Only The Broken Hearts (Make You Beautiful)
02. Shitload of Money
03. Losing My Insanity
04. Somewhere Close To You
05. I Have A Right
06. Alone In Heaven
07. The Day
08. Cinderblox
09. Don't Be Mean
10. Wildfire II
11. Wildfire III

The "I Have A Right" video can be seen below.

Commented SONATA ARCTICA frontman Tony Kakko: "'I Have A Right' was the very last song I wrote for this album. At that point Tommy had already played his last track for 'Stones Grow Her Name', gotten ready to go to sauna AND opened his first beer for that night, when I SMS'd him to check his e-mail and record yet one more 'easy track.' He was mildly pissed. And perhaps fueled by that he nailed the song on the first take. It was a very emotional moment for him, I was told. The song hits home, if you know the subject and can relate to the subject. To put it short, it's a song about how we should not pass the burden we get from the past generation on the shoulders of our future offspring. Children's rights subject. Not the most metal subject ever, I suppose, but then again I think it fits our band well and is pretty universal. Funny to actually have fans from each age group this songs speaks about. Let's see what comes of it.

"Choosing the first single and video from this album was not very easy this time around as we had so many candidates. The best possible problem to have! 'I Have A Right' won the vote.

"The playing parts for this video were shot in our home town Kemi, here in Finland. The location was an old, abandoned school building. Somehow spooky and COLD. It was mid-March. Could say we were lucky the weather was unseasonably warm, yet way below zero.

"Director Tuukka Temonen and his crew did a great job with editing and all the additional footage. All in all, from my point of view, this was the easiest ever SONATA ARCTICA video to make. No 12 hours standing in a room filled with bird shit, no freezing my ass off on the ice in the middle of the sea from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., or running in the woods in the middle of the night and not sleeping for 48 hours... had all that with the past videos."

"I Have A Right" video:

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