Jani has been guilty of this before- his work with Altaria was also equally solo-less (although Altaria was nowhere near as good as Cain’s Offering, not to mention stylistically entirely different). Kotipelto’s voice performs slightly better on the ballads, like Into The Blue and Elegantly Broken, while on faster pieces like Dawn Of Solace and Stolen Waters the listener would do better to focus on the instrumentation, which is consistently excellent.Īnother gripe (although less serious) is the infrequency of solos, and their brevity upon appearance. Luckily Liimatainen has seen fit to include an entire eponymous instrumental piece, which is one of the best songs from the album. His voice is almost entirely devoid of passion, and makes listening to the songs more of a chore than they should be. Kotipelto’s voice is grating, his altos sound uncomfortably forced, and the overall impression is one of uninspired boredom. It does not take long, however, for the weakest point of the album to become painfully apparent. However, the instrumental bits are, to avoid overstatement, fucking awesome. Ballad-like singing is interspersed with epic instrumental riffs, although the overall melody line is a tad repetitive. On Oceans of Regret and Morpheus In Masquerade Liimatainen turns his hand to a slightly more complex attempt at composition. More Than Friends is slightly more riff-driven, although the guitar still plays a relatively subdued role, and the structure is equally conservative. The song has a very conservative structure, verse-bridge-chorus-verse, emphasis on melody in the chorus, with the occasional instrumental thrown in for diversity’s sake. Liimatainen’s virtuoso playing is not explicitly apparent immediately, although a careful listen to the rhythm guitar playing will reveal a very capable musician, as fans of his previous work will know him to be. The record starts off with My Queen Of Winter, a blast of traditional power metal, with a melodic theme being driven by galloping percussion and rhythm section. Simply a collection of excellent musicians creating true and tested metal, managing to dodge the insidious pitfall of the generic and cliché. It’s not trying to break any barriers it’s not trying to find a new approach. Far from being the reincarnation of Ecliptica, Cain’s Offering is power metal, pure and simple. I needed to readjust, to abandon my preconceived judgement, in order to appreciate Gather The Faithful for what Liimatainen intended it to be. I had built up a new Ecliptica in my mind, entirely forgetting that Liimatainen had had little or nothing to do with the actual songwriting. Unfortunately, when I first heard the album, I was somewhat disappointed. Furthermore, Jani was to be entirely responsible for the songwriting, something that had only been witnessed once during his career with Sonata, when he wrote My Selene for the Reckoning Night album. My expectations grew when I discovered that Jani had enlisted Mikko Härkin, the keyboardist responsible for the melodic delight that was Sonata Arctica’s Silence, as a bandmate never mind the prestigious name of Timo Kotipelto of Stratovarius on vocals and Jukka Koskinen of Norther and Wintersun on bass. A supergroup set up by Jani Liimatainen, former guitarist for my favourite power metal band Sonata Arctica, and source of countless hours spent in devotional awe at the technique, inventiveness and emotionality delivered by his guitar solos, was bound to be good. Cain’s Offering was one of my most anticipated releases of the year.