Sonata Arctica

is a Finnish fantasy metal band. Not the first thing you think of doing on random Tuesday night but on a whim, Hilary and I went to see them perform Monday night at Slim's.

Jesus H. Christ, where the heck do I start? The crowd was comprised mainly of partially balding, bespectacled men in their early 30s who looked like they had Lord of the Rings memorized but never hesitated to throw down the devil's horns and headbang at a moment's notice.

The band's look was textbook Scandanavian-metal. All of them had long, flowing locks and flaxen facial hair (THE LEAD GUITARIST, Elias Viljanen, HAD A PERSONAL WIND MACHINE SO THAT HIS COULD BLOW FREE AS IF RIDING ON A MOTORCYCLE OR IN A PERPETUAL MUSIC VIDEO). The lead singer would periodically scream "HELL YAAH!" with such Finnish zeal that I choked on my PBR more than once upon hearing it. We had no choice but to obey the singer, Tony Kakko, halfway through the show when he instructed us to clap and bend to the music as if we were in some speed metal aerobics class. It ruled.

Their music is amazing. It's essentially prog metal on speed, but the fantasy part comes with their lyrics, which are about lighthouses and sailors with restless souls and children with monkeys as friends, usually sung about in falsetto. Lots of wailing. Lots of vibrato. Think Bruce Dickinson's (of Iron Maiden) and R.J. Dio's wide-eyed lovespawn who's a metal child with a hippie heart.

What had me wide-eyed were their dueling guitars straight out of the vein of J. Priest--actually it was technically a guitar dueling with a KEYtar. And the keytarist (Henrik Klingenberg)? He is no less of a man because he can shred on a handheld keyboard.

Before their healthy four-song encore, Kakko snuck back onstage to play a game with us. He divided the crowd into three sections and instructed us to make various drum kit sounds, such as "BAM", "TSSSST" and "BOOM", on command. Once we had it down he pretended to play us like a set of drums while he sang the words to "WE WILL ROCK YOU". METAL.

That said, please enjoy the song (but maybe not the truly ridiculous video) "Wolf & Raven":


And also "The Ruins of My Life", just to give you a taste: