ORPHANED LAND: All Is One (DEATH METAL): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

Only three years after the very successful "The Never Ending Way Of ORwarriOR", the pacifist and also committed Israelis of Orphaned Land have done everything to offer their fans a new album in a very short time (it took 8 years to release the sublime "Mabool", and 6 years for the next one). Shorter and less sophisticated than the two previous masterpieces, this album is more direct, accessible, with a very clear pacifist message.

Far from the complexity of a Mabool, this "All is One" is a concept album articulated around the theme of love and music proposed as a solution to the numerous problems of the current society. Easy to listen to, the over-layers are less numerous thus simplifying the production. The latter is beyond reproach and each instrument, each sonic element finds a place wisely dosed.

The influences of the Middle East are once again very numerous, mixing harmoniously and cleverly songs in Hebrew with parts in Arabic (the duet Kobi and the talented Mira Awad works perfectly), and other Gregorian songs in Latin. As for the growls, they have almost disappeared on this opus in order to make this work more accessible. To better convey the theme, 'All Is One' is largely dominated by a heavy, intense and pure Folk Metal style. Strongly filled with emotions, this one is very diversified, displaying two ballads of a great quality ('Brother' and 'Children'), and tracks strongly marked by the oriental sound imprint and the mixtures of cultures such as 'Shama'im', 'Ya Benaye'. The progressive influences of "Mabool" or "ORwarriOR" keep a place in this album thanks to "Freedom", "Children", or "Our Own Messiah", which, if it is more largely dominated by folk patterns has at least the merit of not completely losing what put them in the spotlight a decade ago.

To note, the sumptuous diptych 'Through Fire And Water' and 'Fail' which first immerses the listener in a story of impossible love (between an Israeli and an Arab) and who, despite the obstacles, manage to find each other. But the beginning of the next track, 'Fail', brings the listener back to the harsh reality in which propaganda and false prophets prevail. This is the only track on the album where we can hear Kobi's powerful screams on the chorus, like excruciating tears of frustration. Marked by the contradiction between a better world, where the different religions and origins would not be a brake to the Harmony of Men (hence the artwork uniting all the symbols of the Religion), and the reality which sees these same Men killing each other because they blindly follow one doctrine or another, the band has the intelligence not to target anyone but to deplore the bitter fact that their ideal is possible but not without changing our societies - the booklet contains all the lyrics and translations so that the dimension of the songs takes its full extent.

"All Is One" is an album of a great quality, intelligent and perfectly realized. Even if it goes in a direction that could worry the purists, they will find in it all the talent of Orphaned Land who strikes again very hard. By its approach which aims at better spreading its message of Peace, the band has everything to touch a very large public which should not overlook this release. - Official website

ORPHANED LAND

ALL IS ONE

CENTURY MEDIA RECORDS

DEATH METAL