The seventh annual Tuska Open Air Metal Festival has now confirmed its
first artists for the 2004 festival.

The headliner for Saturday, the 17th of July, will be Nightwish, who will
release their much-anticipated new album, "Once" in June. Nightwish will
be mainly touring Europe and the United States next summer and their
Tuska-performance is going to be one of their three finnish shows.

Another headliner at Tuska during 16.-18.7.2004 will be the legendary
King Diamond. This pioneer of black metal has been touring the world for
almost three decades, sold millions of records and inspired four
generations of metalheads. Also appearing at Kaisaniemi Park are swedish
melodic-deathmetal groups Soilwork and Dark Tranquility and german
thrashers Dew-Scented.

Besides Nightwish, Tuska-festival will once again present the hottest
finnish metal acts. During the weekend, performances by Impaled Nazarene,
Sonata Arctica, Sinergy, Suburban Tribe, Mokoma, Kotiteollisuus and Timo
Rautiainen & Trio Niskalaukaus will be taking place. The new generation
of finnish metal will be represented by the highly acclaimed Swallow the
Sun, Diablo, Machine Men, Kilpi and Twilightning.

Over the course of three days more than 30 bands will be appearing on
three different stages.

In addition to the festival itself, the evening-clubs will entertain the
festival crowd from Thursday through Sunday on four different locations.
More than 30 up-and-coming acts will be performing in the evening-clubs,
styles ranging from deathmetal to goth, industrial and cover-material.

Tickets for Tuska 2004 will go on sale in May through Tiketti
(www.tiketti.fi), Lippupalvelu (www.lippupalvelu.fi) and the new addition
of Menolippu (www.menolippu.fi). Tickets will also be available at
selected record stores. Tuska 2004 is an all-ages festival.


www.tuska-festival.fi