ORPHANED LAND: GET READY FOR SOME HOT JEW ON JEW ACTION
Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 3:00pm by Axl Rosenberg
Israel’s Orphaned Land have just announced a February 9 release date for their new album, The Never Ending Way Of ORwarriOR, and, yes, we’re going to try and do one of those excellent Jew on Jew interviews that we sometimes do with a member of the band. But while those pieces usually tend to lean towards the, um, let’s say “sillier” aspects of Judaism, I have a feeling that the members of Orphaned Land might have something headier on their minds. I mean, check out what vocalist Kobi Farhi has to say about the album’s themes:
“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 and 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.”
So that’s not exactly like Mookie Singerman discussing doing the electric slide at bar mitzvahs in the 7th grade, is it?
I assume the above statement alone will be enough not only to spark a debate about the quality of Orphaned Land’s music, but also the Israel/Palastine conflict in general. And I gotta say, it’ll be good to watch you cats argue about something that’s not “Lamb of God is gay/Lamb of God r00lz” for a change.
More info on The Never Ending Way Of ORwarriOR as we get it…
-AR
well its about fucking time, ive only been waiting 4 this album since 2007
I have their album Mabool. The peace making ability of their music is awesome.
I discovered this band when I listened to the movie “Global Metal” by Sam Dunn. They’re not bad, but they’re not what I’m looking for in metal
Same path to discovery, different impression. Personally, I find them inspiring.
This reminds me: Any updates/new trailers/release dates for the documentary on the lead singer of Melechesh?
Mabool is one of my favourite albums of the last ten years, there are mixed opinions about that album but I guess it just doesn’t appeal to everyone. Looking forward to ORwarriOR, I just hope that it won’t be a dissappoint since my expectations are sky high at the moment!
fuck yes i just love metalsucks that much more now because this band pwns bitches. found them on last.fm some year ago and couldnt stop masturbating.
Yes! Definitely excited for this one, and I really appreciate the unique approach they take to the the issues contextually and musically.
Very good bamd. Don’t think there’s really any way to debate that their music isn’t great – subjectively, a person might not like it, but as far as objective review goes, it’s great stuff.
DL, what the hell does that mean? How can music be “objectively good or bad”? Isn’t all taste subjective?
It’s the difference in someone saying “The Beatles fucking suck” and “I don’t like the Beatles, but I recognize they were a good band with a lot of influence.”
Okay. That makes sense. Beatles analogy makes sense to me. Because that’s exactly how I feel about them.
No it doesn’t. Both sentences mean exactly the same thing except one is just a euphemism for another and weak-minded tools actually get offended by one and not the other because they can’t handle the fact people disagree with them. Idiots!
No, they don’t. Saying “The Beatles fucking suck” means that you feel their musical ability is shit simply because you don’t like their music. Expanded, it would be “I think the Beatles are a shitty band without talent simply because they play music I don’t like, not because of any actual objective or non-biased observations.”
Mabool was decent, mildly experimental, although unfortunately forgettable as a whole. It showed a lot of potential, though, so I do hope that this is better, because I like what they tried to do on Mabool.
Awesome band.
Undoubtedly an excellent band! Their “Sahara” debut remains one of my favorites albums ever.
I have their album “Mabool” which is pretty cool. But I never really got into them. Maybe I’ll give it another spin or I’ll wait for the new album.
P.S. The Beatles fucking SUCK!!!
Steven Wilson produced this record so you know its gonna sound way better than Mabool, which in my opinion had great songs but mediocre production/arrangement
Orphaned Land is excellent. Discovered them through “Global Metal” as well.
Now if I can get a Whorecore or Demonic Resurrection story on here sometime soon, that would be teh awesome!
I’ve wanted to get Mabool for a while. A friend of mine went to Israel this past summer and I told him to get me their album or a shirt with some Hebrew on it or something, but the bastard forgot. Anyways, this band’s message is really refreshing. More metal bands need to use their energies to foster peace.
This seems neat. I live in Montreal, so my antizionist opinions often clash with those of my Jewish friends, who are often (but not always) Zionists. I’ve so far managed to seperate antizionism from antisemetism, but I find that the loyalty to Israel is often more cultural than religious.
These guys kind of remind me of Afflicted musically and maybe a little Helloween from what I’ve heard. That’s not really good thing as Afflicted never had great sound.
As a Palestinian American, I deeply respect the vision this guy is putting forth. I think it’s interesting that the utopian, unified vision he puts forth is similar to the inevitable conclusion of this conflict, namely a one state solution. Neither side advocates nor wishes for this (Palestinians for national sovereignty reasons and Israel for the threat of a non-Jewish exclusivity to their national character) but it is the sight on the horizon. As Israel refuses to curb Jewish settlements on Palestinian land and the bitter division between ruling parties in the West Bank and Gaza, no other alternative seems even remotely possible except that of a democratic entity encompassing both Israel and Palestine with a shared economy, open borders, shared government, etc. Such an outcome is far from Utopian but unstoppable in the long run. That is, unless this issue of territorial appropriation of Palestinian land by Israel comes to an end and the majority of current settlements are removed to make way for a contiguous and sovereign Palestine. Needless to say, new Palestinian leadership will also be required to make any true progress.
That photo is amazing, by the way.
Never gonna happen.
And that photo IS amazing.