The Crow After six long years, the follow-up to the masterpiece Mabool arrived!

And the surprise was big when the Orphaned Land aficionados realized that this album was some sort of return to their roots, retrieving the formula of El Norra Alila but improving it in a very beautiful and challenging way. The result is an album that is not so epic, diverse and accessible like Mabool, but excellent anyway.

The production is also more straightforward than Mabool, with a not so extensive use of keyboards (played by Steven Wilson by the way, who also appears in writing credits), clear and natural drumming and wonderful guitars. And talking about the guitars, they are the absolute protagonist in ORwarriOR, acting Yoshi Sassi as a true guitar hero!

Sadly, the songwriting is not so incredible like in Mabool, leaving a pair of subpar songs here (the too obviously commercial New Jerusalem, Barakah...) But the overall quality of the album is superb anyway.

Best Tracks: From Broken Vessels, Bereft in the Abyss, The Path, and Disciples of the Sacred Oath II.

Conclusion: improving and expanding the folk-death-prog metal formula of their first two albums and leaving a bit of the grandiloquence of Mabool, Orphaned Land created a truly great record with a ton of memorable songs, an incredible guitar work from Yoshi Sassi and beautiful singing and Arabic melodies, which is still one of the best prog- metal album of this decade, despite its obvious flaws.

Shocking at the beginning, hauting in the long-term.

My rating: ****

P.S.: this review was originally written for ProgArchives.com

dtguitarfan This is an album that is very much like a musical onion - upon first listen it may seem simple, but every listen after that you peel back a layer and find complexity. Orphaned Land creates an incredibly unique musical experience, melding together Progressive, Metal, Death Metal, and traditional Arabic and Jewish soundscapes to produce a style of music that many of their fans have dubbed "Oriental Metal". To add to this blending of styles, throughout the album they employ the use of many traditional instruments (the Oud? The Saz? The Bouzouki?),songs contain lyrics written in multiple languages, a Yemenite folk singer adds guest vocals, and the band puts their spin on centuries old traditional Jewish and Yemenite folk songs. The lyrics even borrow concepts from Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. This is an extraordinary album, and I can't see any way to give it anything but 5 stars.