THE NEVER ENDING WAY OF ORWARRIOR

After a long wait Orphaned Land finally delivered another piece of their unique mix between Progressive Metal and Jewish/Arabic influences. Just like its predecessor, 2004 release Mabool - The Story Of The Three Sons Of Seven, this is another religiously inspired concept album that presents us with the a classic battle between good and evil. Of course my description of the story arc is very limited since I'm narrowing it down to the very basics. Hopefully once the listener starts digging into the concept of this material there will be a more depth to be discovered.

To me, The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR represents a definite improvement over its somewhat overrated predecessor that, in my opinion, came off shallow when it tried using growl and middle eastern music. It was almost as if these additions to the band's sound were thrown in just to make them sound more original than what their style of melodic metal music actually could give them credit for. Luckily Orphaned Land did improve immensely over the last six years giving more space to their Jewish/Arabic influences while almost eliminating all of Kobi Farhi's rougher growl vocals. This does make the band sound more like an ethnic metal band that adds its surrounding influences into the traditional metal sound but with a definite conceptual and progressive metal element added to it.

It appears that Steven Wilson had once again done miracles since the production on this recording has improved quite a bit since what we heard on Mabool - The Story Of The Three Sons Of Seven. This definitely makes the album a long but very smooth and pleasurable experiemnce. Unfortunately it's the former component that once again manages to make a great recording merely good. I really don't see the point of cramming almost 80 minutes of music into this release since there were bound to be a few distinguishable lesser moment lurking about. Add the fact that none of the compositions actually managed to touch me on the emotional level, meaning no real stand-out moments, and we get another really good but not really excellent album. This is especially noticeable during the ballads that all seem unnatural to my ears since they are mostly here to progress the conceptual story arc and add nothing from the musical point that we couldn't have done without.

I was honestly surprised that this album didn't appeal to me as much as I would have wanted it to especially since the band has improved on almost all of the critical points that I addressed in my review of their previous album. There are even a few jam sessions with prominent spotlight on the Jewish/Arabic influences added! Still, the closest Orphaned Land gets to a masterful performance this time around is the quite versatile composition Disciples Of The Sacred Oath II.

Orphaned Land delivered another quite ambitions offering that isn't without its flaws even though I definitely sense a great improvement in the band's style since the release of Mabool - The Story Of The Three Sons Of Seven. I'm sure that fans of Progressive Metal will love this material but to my utter disappointment this music does very little for me in order to strongly recommend it to anyone else.

**** star songs: Sapari (4:04) From Broken Vessels (7:36) Bereft In The Abyss (2:45) The Path Part 1 - Treading Through Darkness (7:27) The Path Part 2 - The Pilgrimage To Or Shalem (7:45) Olat Ha'tamid (2:38) His Leaf Shall Not Wither (2:31) Disciples Of The Sacred Oath II (8:31) New Jerusalem (6:59) Vayehi Or (2:41) Barakah (4:13) Codeword: Uprising (5:25) In Thy Never Ending Way (Epilogue) (5:09)

*** star songs: The Warrior (7:11) M I ? (3:27)