Sonata Arctica: Pariah’s Child [2014]

Released	March 28, 2014 (Europe) March 31, 2014 (United Kingdom) April 1, 2014 (North America)
Recorded	2013-2014 at Studio57, Kakkoslaatu Studio, The Lanceland Room, Magic 7-Studio and Secret Location Studio
Genre	Power metal, Progressive metal
Length	53:04
Label	Nuclear Blast
Producer	Pasi Kauppinen

Pariah’s Child is the eighth studio album by Finnish power metal band Sonata Arctica. It was released on March 28, 2014 by Nuclear Blast. It is the first Sonata Arctica release with new bassist Pasi Kauppinen, who replacedMarko Paasikoski.

In a June 2013 interview concerning keyboardist Henrik Klingenberg’s own band Silent Voices, he confirmed Sonata Arctica would go into recording for their eighth studio album in September 2013. Concerning the progress and style of this new album, he also mentioned “The bulk of the album, we already have the demos…” as well as “we want to focus on making songs that work live.”^[1]

During rehearsals, Henrik mentioned on his blog that songs they were rehearsing for the new album seemed to hearken towards Sonata Arctica’s earlier days, and that they would try to record a 10-minute track.^[2] He also commented that, differently from their previous album, they recorded everything at the same place, as a band.^[3]

On January 9, 2014, the band announced via their official website that the album would be titled Pariah’s Child and would be released on March 28, 2014.^[4]

On February 12, the band released the video for “The Wolves Die Young” via Radio Rock.^[5]

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Tony Kakko.

No.	Title	Length
1.	“The Wolves Die Young”	4:13
2.	“Running Lights”	4:26
3.	“Take One Breath”	4:19
4.	“Cloud Factory”	4:17
5.	“Blood”	5:54
6.	“What Did You Do in the War, Dad?”	5:13
7.	“Half a Marathon Man”	5:43
8.	“X Marks the Spot”	5:20
9.	“Love”	3:50
10.	“Larger Than Life”	9:57
Total length:		53:06^[10]