Not very often have intensity and creativity been stirred up with such a refreshing result.
After being a member of
Sonata Arctica for more than 10 years, guitarist Jani Liimatainen decided that 2007 was the year for new challenges,
Cain's Offering saw the light of day and now two years later the debut is ready for a European release on August 28.
Gather The Faithful is for fans of Melodic Power Metal with a symphonic and catchy, almost Hard Rock /
AOR touch to it, let's say early
Sonata Arctica mixed with Stratovarius, a pinch of
Brother Firetribe with some
Nightwish on the side, I'll even throw in some early
Iced Earth to underline that this is quite heavy and most of the time really fast too.
In all honesty I can't think of an album were Timo
Kotipelto has sounded better, some of these songs are quite challenging and he really rises to the occasion, passionate and with an impressive range in his voice, check out the beautiful ballad
Into The Blue for some unforgettable vocal lines.
A lush keyboard melody gives wings to album opener
My Queen Of Winter, a brilliant display of diverse energy and a song you'll find difficult to improve, the powerhouse drumming from Jani Hurula is luckily on ongoing feature.
A number of wise decisions make this album the best Power Metal record I have come across in a long time and one that gives hope to a genre that has had better days; one of them is the incorporation of huge, bombastic backing vocals.
Another was to make Jukka Koskinen's bass stand out clearly and on equal terms with the other instruments, it gives both texture and colour to songs like
More Than Friends and the speed monster
Dawn Of Solace. In fact the album has a brilliant production, extremely forceful but with room for nuances.
It also steers free of fillers which makes it stand out as a really consistent experience.
The title track is the only instrumental, cleverly put together and with theatrical dramatics in abundance (this is where
Nightwish come to mind), the illuminating keyboards from Mikko Harkin (with
Sonata Arctica on their first two albums) are simply exceptional.
Oceans Of Regret is perhaps the most thrilling example of just how diverse and creative this disc truly is, a spell-binding mix of emotional lyrics, symphonic dramatics, soaring key soloing, progressive twits, blazing drumming and down right trashy passages. To put all that into one song and make it sound this coherent is really impressive.
With Jani being the sole songwriter I expected a few more guitar solos but the quite dominating keys makes up for some of it, still a few more stand out guitar leads (as found it the blistering
Stolen Waters) wouldn't exactly have caused damage.
Morpheus In A Masquerade is the albums longest track, definitely powerful but lacking something to make it really shine.
As something completely different the album ends with the piano/key/vocal symphony
Elegantly Broken, the main melody is to a large extent taken from the eighties pop hit Tell It To My
Heart by Taylor Dayne, the "steal" is so obvious that it's quite cool listening to it in this context, but then again it doesn't really make the song that orginial...I think it's more fitting adding this kind of stuff as bonus tracks. Anyway, all in all this is another enjoyable song, short but effectively it flows by leaving a lush atmosphere of longing in the air.
Album of the month, without doubt. Album of the year, definitely not unlikely.
Written by
Tommy Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Show all reviews by TommyRatingsTommy: 8.5/10Members: 7.6/10 - Average of 5 ratings.
Member ratings
 | Steen (Staff)
Rating: 7.5/10
A superb and highly promising debut. There are some amazing songs here. Oceans of Regret, ... · Read more · |
 | YNGWIEVIKING
Rating: 8.5/10
Agree with your review Tommy and also same rating 8.5/10
Album of the month...Maybe !... · Read more · |
 | Craig
Rating: 8/10
http://www.angelfire.com/music5/metalcdratings/pageCAINSOFFERINGCBREVIEW.html... · Read more · |
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