Orphaned Land

Orphaned Land
Orphaned Land in 2016
Background information
Also known as	Resurrection (1991-1992)
Origin	Petah Tikva/Bat Yam, Israel
Genres	Folk metal Oriental metal Progressive Death Metal Death/doom
Years active	1991–1997 2001–present
Labels	Century Media
Associated acts	Mahavatar, Distorted, Porcupine Tree
Website	www.orphaned-land.com

Members	Kobi Farhi Uri Zelcha Matan Shmuely Chen Balbus Idan Amsalem

Past members	Matti Svatizky Sami Bachar Itzik Levy Eran Asias Eden Rabin Avi Diamond Yatziv Caspi Adee Silva Yossi Sa'aron Sassi

Orphaned Land is an Israeli progressive metal/folk metal band, formed in 1991 under the name Resurrection (changing their name in 1992 to the current name), that combines Jewish, Arabic, and other West Asian influences. They are considered 'The pioneers of Oriental Metal'. The band has gone through several lineup changes over the years, but has retained two of the founding members, Kobi Farhi (vocals) and Uri Zelcha (bass). They are joined by Matan Shmuely (drums), Chen Balbus (guitar/keyboard) who replaced co-founding member Matti Svatizky in 2012, and Idan Amsalem (guitars/bouzouki) who replaced co-founding member Yossi Sassi in early 2014. Their lyrics promote a message of peace and unity, particularly between the three main Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Islam, and Christianity).

History

In 1992, the band changed its name from the original Resurrection^[1] to Orphaned Land. Orphaned Land fuse progressive, doom, and death metal as well as Middle-Eastern folk music and Arabic traditions in a form of Oriental metal. Each album has some concept related to two extremes: a meeting of East and West, past and present, light and darkness, and God and Satan.^[2]

The band’s first album was Sahara (1994) which was originally released as a demo. The second album, El Norra Alila (1996), had many Eastern/Oriental influences, such as "El Norra Alila" ("Illustrious God"), based on a poem sung during Yom Kippur as a plea of forgiveness. It also included songs with traditional oriental Jewish piyyut and Arabic melodies. The album explored the themes of light and darkness, as well as conveying the message of commonality between the three main Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Islam, and Christianity).^[3]

The third album, Mabool: The Story of the Three Sons of Seven (the Hebrew name for the Deluge, depicted in the Bible and Noah's story), released in 2004, was seven years in the making. It tells the story of three sons (one for each Abrahamic religion) who try to warn humanity of a flood coming as punishment for their sins. Musically, the album contains oriental instruments, two choruses, traditional Yemenite chants sung by Shlomit Levi, and quotes of biblical verses from the story of the deluge, read by vocalist Kobi Farhi. After Mabool, Orphaned Land released an EP, Ararat (2005) named after Mount Ararat. Despite their songs drawing on biblical themes, the band have said that they are not religious, with the majority of the band members identifying as atheist or agnostic.^[4]^[5]^[6]

On January, 2010, Orphaned Land released the follow-up to Mabool, entitled The Never Ending Way of ORWarriOR. ORWarriOR means "Warrior of Light", and the concept is the battle between light and darkness. The album has a different sound than Mabool, and was mixed by Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree.^[7] The first single from the CD was titled "Sapari" and was put on Myspace with two other tracks, "Vayehi OR" and "Disciples of the Sacred Oath II". In early 2011, ORWarriOR was rated the Metal Storm number one progressive metal album of 2010 by users with 421/1130 total votes.^[8]

In 2008, Orphaned Land was featured in the documentary Global Metal, a film by the creators of Metal: A Headbanger's Journey.^[9]

On May 22, 2010, Orphaned Land performed as the opening act to Metallica's show in Israel. Following this, the band went on a festival tour in the summer of 2010, promoting their latest album, The Never Ending Way of ORWarriOR, with appearances at such festivals as Wacken Open Air, Summer Breeze Open Air, Sonisphere Festival, Gods of Metal, Rock Hard Festival and more. After the summer festival tour, the band will go on a North American tour in support of Katatonia, along with Swallow the Sun. This will be followed by a tour of Europe supporting Amorphis along with Ghost Brigade.

They performed on June 19, 2011, at the French Metal Festival Hellfest held in Clisson, near Nantes. In February 2011, they performed at the Riviera cultural festival at VIT University, Vellore, India. And in February 2012, they performed at the festival Alcheringa at Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IIT), India.

On June 11, 2012, guitarist Matty Svatitzky announced his departure from the band, due to personal issues. Matti Svatitzky was replaced by Chen Balbus, a young musician who was a replacement guitar player for some live shows, before he became an official member. Chen instantly became an integral part of the composing, writing, producing and recording of the new album, "All Is One."

In 2012 there was an online petition for Orphaned Land to be awarded a Nobel Prize for their commitment to allowing the Arab World to listen to their music despite bans on such a thing from Arab League countries.

Orphaned Land's fifth album, entitled All is One, was released on June 21, 2013 and worldwide on the 25th. Previous vocalist, Shlomit Levy did not perform on this album, so female vocals were performed instead by Mira Awad. Despite its optimistic title, the band considers it their darkest album thematically, albeit musically their most accessible, being nearly devoid of death metal influence.

On January 7, 2014, Orphaned Land announced on their Facebook page that it had parted ways with guitarist and co-founding member Yossi Sassi.^[10] He was replaced by guitarist and musical producer Idan Amsalem.

Orphaned Land recently won Metal Hammer award for "Global Metal Band of the Year 2014".^[11] The band also released a new music video for the track "Let the Truce Be Known" which is directed by Vadim Machona.^[12]

Band members

Current members

Kobi Farhi – lead vocals (1991–present)
Uri Zelcha – bass guitars (1991–present)
Matan Shmuely – drums, percussion (2007–present)
Chen Balbus – guitars, piano, Bouzouki, Saz, Oud, xylophone, backing vocals (2012–present)
Idan Amsalem – guitars, bouzouki (2014–present)

Former members

Matti Svatitzki – guitars (1991–2012)
Sami Bachar – drums, percussion (1991–2000)
Itzik Levy – keyboards, piano (1991–1996)
Eran Asias – drums, percussion (2000–2004)
Eden Rabin – keyboards, backing vocals (2001–2005)
Avi Diamond – drums, percussion (2004–2007)
Yatziv Caspi – percussion (2004–2007)
Yossi Sassi – guitars, oud, saz, bouzouki, chumbush, backing vocals (1991-2014)

Former touring members

Steven Wilson – keyboards (2010)
Shlomit Levi – female backing vocals (2004–2012)

Timeline

Discography

Studio albums

Title	Album details	Peak chart positions			Sales
Title	Album details	FRA ^[13]	GRE ^[14]	BEL (WA) ^[15]	Sales
Sahara	Released: November 25, 1994 Label: Holy Records Formats: CD, CS, LP	—	—	—
El Norra Alila	Released: July 18, 1996 Label: Holy Records Formats: CD, CS	—	—	—
Mabool	Released: February 23, 2004 Label: Century Media Records Formats: CD, LP, digital download^[16]	—	—	—
The Never Ending Way of ORWarriOR	Released: January 25, 2010 Label: Century Media Records Formats: CD, CD+DVD, LP, digital download^[17]	192	44	—
All Is One	Released: June 24, 2013 Label: Century Media Records Formats: CD, CD+DVD, LP, digital download^[18]	—	—	189	US: 400+^[19]
"—" denotes a recording that did not chart or was not released in that territory.

Demos

Title	Album details
The Beloved's Cry	Released: 1993 Label: Self-released Formats: CS

Eps

Title	Album details
Ararat	Released: September 16, 2005 Label: Profound Lore Records Formats: LP
Sukkot in Berlin (EP)	Released: June 22, 2015 Label: soundsUP records Formats: LP

Live albums

Title	Album details
The Road to OR-Shalem	Released: October 24, 2011 Label: Century Media Records Formats: CD, DVD, DVD+CD

Split albums

Title	Album details	Notes
Sentenced / Orphaned Land	Released: 2005 Label: Century Media Records Formats: CD	split with Sentenced

Music videos

Year	Title	Directed	Album
2004	"Ocean Land"^[20]	Yosi Arzi	Mabool
2004	"Norra El Norra"^[21]	Eli Klein	Mabool
2010	"Sapari"^[22]	Shahar Hamo, Matan Cohen	The Never Ending Way of ORWarriOr
2013	"Brother"^[23]	Ami Bornstein	All Is One
2013	"All Is One"	Shahar Hamo^[24]
2014	"Let the Truce Be Known"	Vadim Machona^[25]

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Orphaned Land.

Authority control	MusicBrainz: 3877a6a1-093c-4478-b5a6-58a99a1338db

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