Stratovarius is a Finnish power metal band that formed in 1984 and is still active today. Although the German band Helloween is considered the earliest pioneer of the genre, Stratovarius is often regarded as crossing from classic power metal to keyboard-heavy modern power metal, influencing numerous bands to emerge during the 1990s. Some of Stratovarius's material, particularly their mid-career albums such as Fourth Dimension can be heard to have some progressive metal elements. While their first two albums (Fright Night and Twilight Time) have some NWOBHM elements.

Stratovarius was a power metal band from Finland. They became popular in the 90’s, and through their career have widely inspired newcoming power metal bands with their baroque arranged keyboard solos & Ritchie Blackmore-like guitar portions - most noticably their so-called heir, Sonata Arctica . Stratovarius was founded in Finland in 1984 under the name Black Water. They went through a number of personnel and musical changes before the band found its own voice. The founding members were Tuomo