Orphaned Land - Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR
Rating
RIYL
AmasefferKatatonia
Melechesh
Release Date
02/09/2010
Label
Century MediaTracklist
1. Sapari, Part I "Godfrey's Cordial - an ORphan's life"2. From Broken Vessels, Part I "Godfrey's Cordial - an ORphan's life"
3. Bereft In The Abyss, Part I "Godfrey's Cordial - an ORphan's life"
4. The Path Part 1 - Treading Through Darkness, Part I "Godfrey's Cordial - an ORphan's life"
5. The Path Part 2 - The Pilgrimage To Or Shalem, Part I "Godfrey's Cordial - an ORphan's life"
6. Olat Ha'tamid,Part I "Godfrey's Cordial - an ORphan's life"
7. The Warrior, Part II "Lips Acquire stains - The warriOR awakens"
8. His Leaf Shall Not Wither, Part II "Lips Acquire stains - The warriOR awakens"
9. Disciples Of The Sacred Oath II, Part II "Lips Acquire stains - The warriOR awakens"
10. New Jerusalem, Part II "Lips Acquire stains - The warriOR awakens"
11. M i ?, Part II "Lips Acquire stains - The warriOR awakens"
12. Vayehi Or, Part II "Lips Acquire stains - The warriOR awakens"
13. Barakah, Part III "BARAKAH - enlightening the Cimmerian"
14. Codeword: Uprising, Part III "BARAKAH - enlightening the Cimmerian"
15. In Thy Never Ending Way (Epilogue), Part III "BARAKAH - enlightening the Cimmerian"
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Full disclosure: I absolutely adored Israeli-based Orphaned Land’s previous effort, Mabool. It was far and away my favorite album of 2004 and is easily one of my favorite albums ever. It opened my eyes to a quality of music that I never knew exited, intertwining countless musical styles to create something so incredibly epic that it takes my breath away even to this day. I honestly can’t imagine a progressive metal album blowing me away quite like Mabool did at the time. Six years later (side note: it took the group eight years to write Mabool, so six years is a relatively short wait by comparison) I jumped at the chance to review their most recent effort, The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR. To my initial joy, I found that ORwarrioR was even more epic and grandiose than its predecessor, upped the incorporation of Middle Eastern instrumentation, AND was produced by Porcupine Tree ringleader Steve Wilson. Could Orphaned Land have possibly created the perfect storm that comes together to unseat Mabool as one of my most revered discs in any band’s discography EVER?
After listening to this album numerous times, letting it percolate and simmer within my brain and allowing my thoughts to gather, sadly (and it pains me to say this) the answer is a resounding “no”. Sure, on paper the premise sounds terrific – take a wonderful cast of musicians, pair them with one of the most forward-thinking producers in music and give them six years to whip together the most progressive album of their careers – but in reality, it just doesn’t come together. You really can’t fault the group’s effort, because God knows they possess a wealth of talent and clearly put more than enough ideas, time and effort into the album. That said, there are two major things keep this album from achieving the level of excellence the group was gunning for: a lack of restraint and a complete and utter disregard for the flow of the album from beginning to end.
Problem 1: The album is 78 minutes long. 78 minutes! Mabool ran a robust 67 minutes, not jaw-droppingly long for a band as progressive in nature, but anything past an hour begins to test the patience of listeners regardless of the quality put forth. Eighteen minutes past an hour is borderline unacceptable. I applaud Orphaned Land for attempting to create an album so incredible that listening to it in one sitting is akin to watching an incredible movie: time melts away as you become enraptured with the medium around you. Unfortunately, this is far from the truth. Sitting through this entire album is hard... really, really hard (and keep in mind that this is coming from someone who genuinely loved their previous album, which was only 11 minutes shorter). It’s impossible to reward an album for its length when it’s so difficult to listen to in its entirety. Ambitious? Sure. High quality? Not so much.
Problem 2: The flow from track to track makes it very difficult to become engrossed with the album. Every time the band begins building a head of steam, be it with an exquisite riff, an impressive fill or an interesting vocal pattern, they’re stopped cold by an acoustic section or, more frequently, female Hebrew singing courtesy of Shlomit Levi. These injections were perfectly timed and placed on Mabool; on OWarriOR they’re utilized more often and offer little in the grand scheme of the album. Numerous tracks begin or end with the aforementioned vocals, allowing very little momentum to build from song to song. The group even decided to add interludes to the album, which seems absurd considering the already lengthy run-time.
Having said that, Orphaned Land is far too talented to create a bad album. Tracks like “The Path Part 1 – Treading Through Darkness,” “The Path Part 2 - The Pilgrimage To Or Shalem,” “Codeword: Uprising” and “Disciples of the Sacred Oath” offer moments that flirt with greatness, only they’re typically sandwiched between Israeli chanting or misplaced female vocals. If you took the best pieces of this album, re-ordered them and slapped them together, I have no doubt that the result would be at least a four-star 30-minute album or EP. I found myself enjoying quite a few pieces of the album; it’s just that digging through all of the uninspired filler is more of a chore than it should be. Look at it this way – OrwarriOR is the Australia to Mabool’s The English Patient. Both good movies, both really, really long movies, but at the end of the day, one is far and away more enjoyable because the producers of The English Patient decided to keep only the best ideas and remove anything unnecessary, whereas Austrlia suffered due to too many ideas being squeezed into one full-length feature. Maybe next time around Orphaned Land should cut down on their writing time, toss out some of the less-focused ideas and truly build upon the excellence that they achieved with Mabool.
--Matt Murphy
Comments
Milwaukee, WI
This was the first time I hard heard this group and was excited after the first few songs... But there are too many issues to make this as good as I feel it should be. The first problem for me is that the growled vocals are awful. The lead singer is very talented and has a lot of range but the growling just sounds stupid. The other problem, as you mentioned, is the length. Some songs just drag and it takes a lot away from the experience. Overall it's solid but it sounds like I need to go back an album to hear the group at their best.
read my reviews @useless randomness
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Leeds, England
Never really liked this band, & I get bored every time I listen to them.
And yeah, their albums are tooooooooooo long.
Porland, OR
I hadn't heard them before today, but I like what I am hearing on their Myspace page.
"He's dead, Michael-- You killed him when you left the door open with the air conditioner on."
Decatur, Alabama
You have to be crazy this album is amazing. Definitely one of my favorites of the year.
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Minnesota
I really got into this album... but your criticisms of the album being too long and having poor flow are very, very valid. The album does drag when you listen to it in its entirety, and there are too many lulls, but when the band is on their A game, it's frickin' awesome. I could easily see this making my year end list, but I could just as easily see myself getting sick of it by mid year. Only time will tell.