Sons Of Apollo announce second album MMXX and European tour

From Loudersound.

Sons Of Apollo have announced the release of their second album, MMXX. The album (pronounced ’20/20′) is the follow-up to debut Psychotic Symphony, and will be released on January 17.

The album will be released as a standard CD package, as a limited edition 2 CD set – including instrumental mixes and a cappella excerpts – and as a double vinyl plus CD package, and on all digital formats.

The band, in which drummer Mike Portnoy and keyboardist Derek Sherinian are joined by Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal, Billy Sheehan and Jeff Scott Soto, have also announced a European tour for March, in addition to the already-announced run of North American dates in January. New dates below.

“Stylistically, we have followed the same path as the debut, says drummer Portnoy. “But we feel that it has come out stronger, simply because we know one another better.

“Psychotic Symphony was the first time the five of us had worked together, so there was bound to be an air of experimentation happening. Now, we can draw on having the experience not only of recording that album, but also of touring together a lot. And now there is clearly a lot more obvious chemistry going on.”

He continues: “It took about three weeks to get all the music written. That was a very smooth process. The last time, it certainly must have felt a little weird for Bumblefoot to be writing with Derek and me, because we were strangers to him. Now, we know one another better and that helped things push along.”

“Because we all have our home studios, it meant everyone could record there as and when they had opportunity,” adds Sherinian. “We all had the luxury of being able to take our time to get all the parts done, which was a huge help in the way the album’s come out. I suppose in all, it took about eight months to record everything.””