Souls Of Diotima have announced the first dates of a European tour called Arcade // Level One, with Solitude Within opening.
Three nights, one weekend: Le Stock in Mennecy on 19 March, Club Hell in Diest on 20 March, and Popei in Eindhoven on 21 March. More are promised, and announcing a weekend first is how a band of this size tests whether a longer run is worth booking.
The reason for the confidence is the album. Arcade has charted in nineteen countries, from Canada and Japan to Qatar and the Maldives, which is a list that says streaming rather than sales, and the video for Cage has passed a million views.
Those numbers come from a band nobody outside symphonic metal has heard of, which is the part worth noticing. A record can now reach the Maldives without ever reaching the British press.
They put Arcade out with three videos already spent, and the tour is where that spending gets tested.