As every Sonata Atctica fan I was really looking forward to listening to “Gather The Faithful” having in mind that I would listen to one more masterpiece like the older Sonata Arctica albums “Ecliptica”, “Silence”, “Reckoning Night”. Music wise, “Gather The Faithful” is a lot similar to the sound and style of Sonata Arctica with some more Rock influences.

The thing with the album is not the songs, because the compositions are really good, but in my opinion it is Kotipelto’s voice. I have no problem with Kotipelto as a singer, I really like him, but from the first time I heard the album it just seemed that the songs were desperately asking for Tony Kakko’s voice. I’m not prejudiced against Kotipelto’s voice nor obsessed with Kakko, but imagine Bruce Dickinson singing in Helloween. It’s just wrong.

Songs like “Dawn Of Solace” and “Into The Blue” are typical Sonata Arctica masterpieces and you can easily say that they could be tracks of “Ecliptica”. To be fair, I ought to say that the album is not bad at all. It has some really nice songs like “Stolen Waters”, “More Than Friends” and “Dawn Of Solace”, which I’ve already mentioned. But the power of habit is something that is not easy to overcome…