ORPHANED LAND „The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR”

Music: Death/Middle Eastern Folk Metal
Website: http:// www.orphaned-land.com
Country: Israel
Duration: 78:18 (15 songs)
Cool Songs: From Broken Vessels, New Jerusalem, Olat Ha'tamid

The Israeli band ORPHANED LAND has always had its special place in the metal world. One of the first bands, if not the very first, that used Arabic folk influences in metal music has thanks to its uniqueness drawn listeners' attention already since the release of its debut album “Sahara” in 1994. Unfortunately their career has been aborted with several breaks – namely an 8-year pause after the release of the next album “El Norra Alila”, and a 6-year break after the release of extremely successful album “Mabool” in 2004. But we can hardly blame them for this considering the problematic region they come from. The band had 6 long years to consider the tiniest details of the new album – and it paid off.

With their new album “The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR” ORPHANED LAND are in contrast to their previous opus “Mabool” even more diving into waters of progressive metal, while death metal influences are fading into the background, yet they still remain apparent. The band chose Steven Wilson (PORCUPINE TREE) as its producer, and it was him who called the band 'Middle Eastern OPETH'. The truth is that some similarity cannot be denied. Extensive progressive tracks (average length is over 6 minutes), strongly epic not only in the respect of lyrics can resemble OPETH to a certain degree. Yet I wouldn't dare to compare ORPHANED LAND with any other band. The naturalness with which they use progressive elements still keeps amazing me. There's just a few bands that are able to turn melodic parts to heavy and vice versa without them sounding a bit forced. And what more, with the exceptionality of the songwriting, that is songs without any refrain, that keep going on, there is an extraordinary music, that would only suffer from any comparison.

“The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR” is opened by a very soft and catchy song “Sapari”, an Israeli singer Shlomit Levi took care of the guest female vocals – again with curious spontaneousness. One could now wonder where did ORPHANED LAND's heaviness go to. But there's no need to worry – the next song “From Broken Vessels” starts with newfound fury and chunky riffs. Both is then in perfect harmony combined in two-piece song “The Path – Treading Through Darkness & The Pilgrimage to Or Shalem”. The album is divided into three parts – Part I: Godfreys Cordial – An ORphan's Life (tracks 1-6); Part II: Lips Acquire stains – The WarriOR Awakens (tracks 7-12) and Part III: Barakah – Enlightening the Cimmerian (tracks 13-15), yet there's only conceptual difference between these. Some spoken passages are added as well to enhance the drama, making the tracks a bit soundtrack-like. The Symphonic orchestra of Nazareth helped to get the massiveness of the sound and ethnic diversity (great example is the song “Olat Ha'tamid”).

“The Never Ending Way of OrwarriOR” offers many new possibilities and two or three listens are definitely not enough to reveal all of them. Despite that I recommend listening to it right after getting up from the bed (although I know it's just a beautiful dream for most of the working people), because the album has almost eighty minutes of playtime (which is actually the maximum a regular CD can play) and for some reason would be a perfect lullaby (tested!). ORPHANED LAND are definitely not my cup of tea, but I can barely find anything to criticize on this album. It's just good. Listen to it.

note: 9.5/10

Tracklist

1. Sapari
2. From Broken Vessels
3. Bereft in the Abyss
4. The Path (Pt. 1) – Treading Through Darkness
5. The Path (Pt. 2) – The Pilgrimage to Or Shalem
6. Olat Ha'tamid
7. The Warrior
8. His Leaf Shall Not Wither
9. Disciples of the Sacred Oath II
10. New Jerusalem
11. Vayehi Or
12. M I ?
13. Barakah
14. Codeword: Uprising
15. In Thy Never Ending Way (Epilogue)

Line-up

Kobi Farhi – Vocals, Chants, Narration, Choir
Yossi Sa'aron (Sassi) – Lead Guitar, Piano, Backing Vocals
Matti Svatizky – Rhythm Guitar, Acoustic Guitar
Uri Zelcha – Bass, Fretless Bass