Description

2004 limited edition with The Calm Before The Flood bonus cd

Back from an extended, eight-year hiatus many thought would never come to an end, Israel’s Orphaned Land finally completed their third album, the extensively titled Mabool (The Story Of The Three Sons Of Seven), in 2004. Thankfully, the album’s impressive — at times unprecedented — achievements in expanding the boundaries of heavy metal go to great lengths in justifying such a long wait. Indeed, with their ambitious, at times even improbable, efforts to incorporate native Middle Eastern musical styles into the heavy metal template, Orphaned Land stake a claim in the largely unrecognized ‘World Metal’ sub-genre, also encompassing the percussion-infused efforts of Brazilians Sepultura, the folk-dependent death metal of Finland’s Amorphis, and, hitting closest to home, the ‘Mesopotamian Metal’ of countrymen Melechesh. And yet, Mabool is arguably more diverse and experimental than many of the above artists’ wildest efforts — SO eclectic, in fact, that some might argue it barely qualifies as heavy metal anymore! A concept album, no less, ‘Mabool’ takes a swing at setting the Noah’s Ark biblical myth to music (Mabool = ‘the flood’ get it?), and the stage is set by the opening tandem of ‘Birth Of The Three’ and ‘Ocean Land’, which marry beguiling Arabic melodic nuances to crushing death metal riffs, drums, and cookie-monster growls. Very interesting, to be sure, but it’s on ‘The Kiss Of Babylon’ where things really start getting freaky, thanks to increasing use of exotic sonic elements, ethnic instrumentation, the introduction of clean singing, and an eventual descent into two minutes of acoustic guitars and solo female vocals in Hebrew on the prayer-like ‘A’salk’. From here on out, dynamic examples of truly progressive metal such as ‘Halo Dies’, the title track, the epic ‘The Storm Still Rages Inside’ and the absolutely awe-inspiring ‘Norra El Norra’, continue to rub shoulders with far gentler and relaxing material like ‘Building The Ark’ the soothingly ambient ‘The Calm Before The Flood’ and the evocatively sweet closing theme, ‘Rainbow’. Of course, to some listeners, all of this variety might seem more fit for belly-dancing than head-banging; which brings us back to the only major caveat of Orphaned Land’s brave experimentation: does ‘Mabool’ traverse so vast a range of styles that less sophisticated heavy metal fans are doomed to get lost in the sand dunes? In a first instance, the answer is probably yes, but with repeat performances, any confusion duly gives way to astonishment and revelation, marking ‘Mabool’ for possible inclusion in the pantheon of albums representing the aforementioned ‘World Metal’ category.

Track listing:
1. Birth Of The Three (The Unification)
2. Ocean Land (The Revelation)
3. The Kiss Of Babylon (The Sins)
4. Asalk
5. Halo Dies (The Wrath Of God)
6. A Call To Awake (The Quest)
7. Building The Ark
8. Norra El Norra (Entering The Ark)
9. The Calm Before The Flood
10. Mabool (The Flood)
11. The Storm Still Rages
12. Rainbow (The Resurrection)

Disc 2: The Calm Before The Flood
1. The Evil Urge-live acoustic
2. A Never Ending Way-live acoustic
3. Mercy-Paradise Lost cover-live acoustic
4. The Beloveds Cry-live acoustic
5. The Orphaned’s Medley-live acoustic