Author: Rok Klemše
Artist: Orphaned Land
Label: Century Media
Release: 2010
Runtime: 1:18:18
Rating: 4.5/5
In 2004, the Israeli outfit Orphaned Land put out their first concept record, Mabool: The Story of Three Sons of Seven, on which they toyed with the idea of a rift between three religions – Christianity, Judaism and Islam – through the parable of three sons. Mabool finally got the band in front of a wider audience and earned nothing but glowing reviews, and soon after its release Orphaned Land locked themselves back in the studio and started writing new material. For a full six years the Israelis polished every last detail, and at the start of this year they finally dropped the long-awaited record, titled The Never Ending Way of the ORwarriOR. Once again Orphaned Land went for a concept, this time maybe even more elaborate and refined, about the eternal battle between light and darkness and about the hero – the warrior of light (“or” means light in Hebrew) – who fights it.
Considering how long the album was in the making, opening with a simple track like Sapari makes you wonder whether the long wait was really worth it. This reworking of an ancient Yemenite folk song doesn’t reach the brilliant intro of the previous record, Birth of the Three (The Unification), and with its almost-pop melody repeating over four minutes and a plain verse-chorus-verse structure, Orphaned Land don’t make up for six years of waiting for Mabool’s follow-up. But the very first notes of the eerie piano intro to From Broken Vessels wipe away any worry that Orphaned Land have lost the plot. A unique mix of progressive metal – full of broken rhythms, virtuoso solos and aggressive passages – with Middle Eastern folk melodies, unmistakable melos and traditional Israeli and Arabic tunes spills out of every minute of the album. I can safely say that Orphaned Land are right now one of the most primal, unique and folk-faithful metal bands around, one you can easily and shamelessly file under proper folk metal. Luckily, Orphaned Land aren’t yet another one of those bands that borrow the folk part of their sound from northern Europe, which is selling like crazy these days – the music and culture of the Middle East seep out of their music from every pore. Using a number of traditional instruments from the region – saz, oud, chumbush, bouzouki and other exotic instruments – Orphaned Land effectively paint the story of a mythological hero fighting for peace and coexistence somewhere in the middle of vast desert dunes. The Israeli band tries to achieve through music something that politicians and religious fanatics have been destroying for decades and centuries: Orphaned Land preach coexistence among the three Abrahamic religions, and on some level they actually pull it off. At their live shows, Arabs and Jews alike sing Orphaned Land’s lyrics together, even hugging, building a friendship between two groups that have been killing each other in the name of god for far too long. It’s utopian to expect the imbecilic ones on both the Israeli and Arab side to listen to the ideas Orphaned Land spread, but every beginning is a good one, as they say. On top of that, with the approach to religion they sketch out in all their lyrics, Orphaned Land walk a razor’s edge, since the kind of faith they sing about in metal is pretty taboo. Orphaned Land manage this too; perhaps largely thanks to the region they come from. What’s more, the band draws parts of the lyrics directly from the Bible, the Torah and the Quran, and they’re written in English and Hebrew, and this time for the first time in Arabic as well. As for the metal side of the music, it’s carried largely by Yossi Sassi’s guitar work, built on varied riffs, the occasional “chugga-chugga” sawing, and above all excellent, unique solos that call to mind the best years of today’s sadly withered and spent Dream Theater, except that they mostly steer clear of the European pentatonic scales we know and use “foreign” Middle Eastern ones instead. The gorgeously played acoustic parts occasionally recall the mastery of Sweden’s Opeth, most of all in the acoustic intro to the brilliant, balladic The Path, Pt. 1: Treading Through Darkness, which brings back memories of the excellent acoustic record Damnation. Some of the blame for that surely lies with the album’s co-producer, the genius Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree), who helped the Israelis in the final stages of recording and contributed a few of his trademark “Hammond” keyboard lines, creating an atmosphere that’s by turns terrifying and melancholic and magical. The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR is a wildly varied, dynamic record, so alongside the mournful, balladic moments that suit the concept, it also offers mighty, pompous, almost cinematic ones. One of them is the excellent The Warrior, where a symphony orchestra from Nazareth appears in all its grandeur, standing out especially for its use of Arabic violins, tuned differently than usual, creating an unexpected and almost solemn ambient feel. Still, Orphaned Land are also a powerful heavy metal band, anchored in progressive and melodic death metal, and they make that crystal clear with one of their heaviest and most aggressive tracks, the crushing Codeword: Uprising. The moments that surprise you with every new listen are all over The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR, and the big culprit is above all Kobi Farhi’s phenomenal vocal performance. It’s thanks to Farhi that the concept comes fully alive: vocally you get everything from brilliant clean singing, epically belted choruses, mysterious whispering and choir vocals to “preaching” in Hebrew and a raw, aggressive yet clear and intelligible growl. The whole thing is capped off by a superb production that’s extremely warm, with a sound that’s crystal clean and clear.
With The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR, Orphaned Land may have managed to create their magnum opus, and the record is definitely full of emotion and so rich that you discover new and new things with every listen. Orphaned Land are telling us that we ourselves are the warriors of light, and even though it’s utopian to expect coexistence and peace among the three Abrahamic religions, Orphaned Land’s message is a powerful one. At almost an hour and twenty minutes, the record is no easy bite, but it offers a ton, and above all it has a quality many modern records lack – the so-called “replay value”, or the high value of listening again and again.
Lineup
Kobi Farhi – all vocals
Yossi Sassi Sa’aron – lead guitar, acoustic guitar, saz, bouzouki, oud, chumbush, piano, backing vocals
Matti Svatizky – rhythm guitar, acoustic guitar
Uri Zelcha – bass, fretless bass, acoustic bass
Session members:
Avi Diamond – drums
Shlomit Levi – female vocals
Steven Wilson – keyboards
Avi Agababa – percussion
Avner Gavriell – piano (In Thy Never Ending Way (Epilogue))
Nizar Radwan – violin
Srur Saliba – violin
Alfred Hagar – nay and kawala flutes
Yonatan Danino – shofar
Shmuel Ruzbahan – santur
Production
Steven Wilson and Orphaned Land
Track list
1. Sapari
2. From Broken Vessels
3. Bereft In The Abyss
4. The Path – 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, Pt. 2
10. New Jerusalem
11. Vayehi Or
12. M i ?
13. Barakah
14. Codeword: Uprising
15. In Thy Never Ending Way (Epilogue)
