THE NEVER ENDING WAY OF ORWARRIOR

After having been impressed by the breakthrough release Mabool (the flood), I am once again impressed with this follow-up and to date most recent Orphaned Land album. Once again they give us their totally unique and thrilling fusion of Metal and ethnic music, this time being even more eclectic than before. Various Metal styles (progressive and extreme Metal) is effortlessly mixed with various Middle- Eastern traditional music forms. Oh what original and interesting music this is; and all delivered with such impressive skill and enthusiasm. It did indeed take some time and a bit of effort for me to get into this music (which is true of a lot of great progressive music), but it was certainly rewarding!

There is one problem, however, and that is the length of this album. Even if almost every track is very good in its own right, the sheer amount of music here makes it not so easy to devour. With a running time of nearly 80 minutes, I feel that the album as a whole would have benefitted from being shortened somewhat. Also, the conceptual nature of this album is less evident than that of Mabool. On that previous album, the concept helped to hold it all together and create a coherent and organic whole. On The Neverending Way Of OrWarriOR it is less obvious that there is a story to be told, and this, together with the great musical diversity and immense length, makes the end result slightly erratic. But all the parts remain highly enjoyable, nonetheless.

Production wise, and also in terms of instrumental and vocal skills, the present album can, however, be seen as an improvement over the already impressive Mabool. The alternation between clean and growling vocals was never as natural as this and there is a similar flow and unity between the acoustic and electric elements. There is again a plethora of exotic and traditional instruments among the traditional (Prog) Rock and Metal line-up of guitars, bass, drums and keyboards. The latter together with the occasional operatic female vocals bring with it a tasteful symphonic element. As I pointed out in my review of Mabool, you may easily think that this music is messy due to the, at first sight, disparate musical elements, but it is actually not - it all flows very nicely and effortlessly.

Overall, I cannot say anything less than that this is brilliant music that deserves to be heard by anyone interested in unique and progressive music (this music is certainly very progressive, but it is not, I would say, Prog). Highly recommended!

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