Artist: Orphaned Land
Album: All Is One
Genre: Folk Metal
Release Date: 24th June 2013
Label: Century Media Records
Album Review
ORPHANED LAND began as a death/ doom metal band with folk elements back in the 90s before shifting to their present state of folk metal. However, this is not typical folk metal in the vein of the black metal tinged harmonies that are heard from heavy hitters like KORPILKANNI or PRIMORDIAL. ORPHANED LAND recently have moved towards a more unifying sound and theme of their music- touching quite a bit on middle eastern influences with tons of percussion and other exotic instruments, not just flutes and violins or keyboard-sounding instruments with heavy churning guitars. Indeed, one could consider ORPHANED LAND the enigmatic take on Folk Metal as MELECHESH is to black metal. It isn’t quite the standard listen, but fans of the genre will definitely find it interesting as they hear ‘All Is One.’
‘All Is One’ is perhaps one of more melodic and softer ORPHANED LAND releases. Focusing on a sort of spiritual harmony, the band does a great job at keeping everything even, but stays quite far from any sort of “harsh” sound within their music. Tracks like ‘The Simple Man’ and ‘Ya Benaye’ are so easy going and enjoyable some might think they were hearing slower gothic rock from a group like TIAMAT. The backing choirs are fantastic additions giving the music symphonic components such as on ‘Let The Truce Be Known’. In fact, the only real “hard and black metal influenced” track here that would suit fans of the common sound of modern folk metal is ‘Fail’ which is still a raw, but clean sounding track. ‘Children’ is a slow, drawn out number that will recall ORPHANED LAND’s earlier days of being more in the doom category, but the keyboards help make light of things and keep the atmosphere going amongst the chugging guitars. Overall, this is a strong effort that may not seem as musically diverse as previous efforts, but has a core harmonic sound that will please new and old fans of the group.
Tracklist
01. All Is One
02. The Simple Man
03. Brother
04. Let The Truce Be Known
05. Through Fire And Water
06. Fail
07. Freedom
08. Shama'im
09. Ya Benaye
10. Our Own Messiah
11. Children
Line-up
Kobi Farhi – Vocals
Yossi Sassi – Guitars
Chen Balbus – Guitars
Uri Zelcha – Bass
Matan Shmuely – Drums
Website
http://www.orphaned-land.com / https://www.facebook.com/OrphanedLandOfficial/info
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 8
Sound: 8
Total: 8 / 10
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