STRATOVARIUS – New Year, New Tour, New Album

STRATOVARIUS have issued the following update from the road, revealing details on future tour and album endeavours:

“We're still in the middle of the Polaris world tour, but we do have a bit of news.

The European summer festivals earlier this year were nice and relaxing as always, and then we embarked on a long three-month leg which covered the Far East, North and South America, and Finland. One highlight was Beijing, a place none of us in the band had played or visited before. Some of bassist Lauri Porra's video blogs from the past year can be found at this location.

After a break for the holidays, the caravan will roll on in 2010, and we will do a long tour of Europe in January and February. You can always check an up-to-date list of any upcoming dates at this address.

We have some more good news: we just confirmed to play Wacken Open Air in August 2010, which is always great fun. It's the biggest metal festival in the world, and has a great crowd, but also since there are so many bands there, you can always reconnect with many old friends backstage and in the VIP bar. This gig will mark the end of the Polaris would tour which spanned four continents with close to a hundred gigs.

We have also confirmed an appearance on the 70,000 tons of metal Caribbean cruise in late January, 2011. You can find details about this very nice cruise here.

We saved the best piece of good news for last: next year we will start work on a new full-length record, a follow-up to 2009's Polaris.”