- published: 03 Jan 2016
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Arctica was an ancient continent which formed approximately 2.5 billion years ago in the Neoarchean era.
Arctica consisted of the Canadian and Siberian shields, and is now roughly situated in the Arctic around the current North Pole.
Arctica joined with the continents Atlantica and Nena about one billion years ago to form the supercontinent, Rodinia.
With the breakup of the supercontinent, Arctica's fragments have mostly stayed at higher latitudes.
Arctica was chosen as a name because since its formation the continent and the cratons that broke away from it have spent most of their time in northerly latitudes.
Sonata Arctica is a Finnish power metal band from the town of Kemi, originally assembled in 1995. Their later works (most notably The Days of Grays, Unia and a few tracks on Reckoning Night and Winterheart's Guild) contain several elements typical of progressive metal.
The band was founded by Marko Paasikoski, Jani Liimatainen and Tommy Portimo in Kemi at the end of 1995 (Tony Kakko and Pentti Peura joined in early 1996). Originally named Tricky Beans, they played hard rock rather than the power metal with which they grew to fame. During their early career, they recorded three demos which were never sent to any recording label — Friend 'till the End, Agre Pamppers and PeaceMaker.
In 1997 the band changed their name to Tricky Means, and from that point until 1999 their style was thoroughly worked upon and ultimately was drastically changed, acquiring strong emphasis on the keyboard melodies and relying on an easily distinguishable rhythm line maintained both by the bass and the guitar. Vocalist Tony Kakko developed a clean singing style which relies both on falsetto and tenor voices and second guitarist Marko Paasikoski left the band. Kakko has stated that the change of sound was influenced by fellow Finnish power metal band Stratovarius.