11/06/2009 20:10

Orphaned Land

Orphaned Land: 'The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR'

On January 25th, 2010 the time of wait is finally over! Israel’s Orphaned Land will finally release their highly anticipated fourth studio opus 'The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR' in Europe. Mixed by Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree, Opeth), who is also responsible for several keyboard parts on the new album, 'The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR' turns out to be a sophisticated concept album taking Orphaned Land’s unique brand of exotic, heavy music to soaring new heights in terms of complexity and catchiness. It is an audible manifest that the time has come for Middle Eastern metal to take over!

Vocalist Kobi Farhi comments on the album’s concept and the striking new promo photo as follows:
“As people that were born into the tragedy of our region, we have always been devoted to creating harmony between conflicts, a musical heaven on earth, a tango between God & Satan. Even in the album’s artwork we combined Hebrew and Arabic, regardless of the fight between Jews and Muslims. I found a Jordanian guy, specialized in calligraphic artwork. He took letters from Hebrew and Arabic and moulded them in his art to create a symbol of peace. Same goes for our band photo, where we portrayed a synergy between the three monotheistic religions, that believe in the same God and yet, ridiculously have been killing each other for centuries "in the name of God" and turned the holy land into an orphaned land. Naturally we continued this idea of union on a musical level as well and the result is as always crazy, it's a miracle – in our concerts: our Jewish fans sing in Arabic and our Muslim fans sing in Hebrew, brave friendships have spawned and our Middle Eastern metal music destroys all this political witchcraft we have been trapped in for so long. This is a musical journey of hope in lands of war, creating heaven on earth, building a new Jerusalem.”

Israel's ORPHANED LAND is probably the only band from this country that has managed to succeed at building up a huge following among Muslims and Arabian people. These fans communicate freely via the band’s social networking pages, some of them even proudly bearing Orphaned Land tattoos, even though that puts them at huge risk in their home countries! The African musician Fela Kuti once said: "Music is the weapon of the future" - Orphaned Land is the living proof of that!

(source: Century Media)

(older news about the topic:)

Israel’s progressive folk metal masters Orphaned Land are currently recording the highly anticipated follow-up to 2004’s 'Mabool', vocalist Kobi Farhi states:

“Hello there to all the ORphaned warriors of light - we are very happy that we finally entered the studio to deliver you the long awaited concept album – 'ORwarriOR'!
The album is going to be more than 70 minutes long and as usual many traditional instruments and languages will be involved in the process. In my opinion this is the best Orphaned Land album ever! We can't wait for you to put your hands on it and we look forward to tour and meet you all on the road! Check out our diary from the studio at our Ultimate Metal forum and see you all soon! Your Orphaned brother - Kobi.”

Click on the following link to read Orphaned Land’s regularly updated studio diary:
http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/orphaned-land/472194-orphaned-land-recording-orwarrior-diary-studio.html

'ORwarriOr' will be mixed by legendary producer Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree, Opeth) and he comments as follows:

“Finally! I am very happy and look forward to mix Orphaned Land's new album, I'm sure this will be one of the greatest and most original albums in the metal scene!”

The album is expected to surface on Century Media Records in early autumn 2009, stay tuned to the band’s MySpace page for songs, videos and more updates regarding the new opus: www.myspace.com/orphanedmyspace

(source: Century Media)