Orphaned Land
Orphaned Land is an Israeli heavy metal band formed in 1991. They combine Mizrahi and Maghrebi Jewish, Arabic, Turkish, and other Middle Eastern and North African musical elements, with metal, as well as from Sephardic music, and other sounds from the Mediterranean Region. They have also included "metalized" versions of various piyyutim in all of their albums since El Norra Alila. The band are considered pioneers of oriental metal. Orphaned Land have gone through several lineup changes over the years, but have retained two founding members of the band, Kobi Farhi and Uri Zelcha. Other members are Matan Shmuely, Chen Balbus who replaced co-founding member Matti Svatizky in 2011, and Idan Amsalem 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. The name "Orphaned Land" comes from the lyrics of a Yehuda Poliker song and reflects "a paradox" to the term "Holy Land". Four of their six albums are concept albums relating to the concept of light and darkness.
Despite Orphaned Land's 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, and ambivalent towards organized religion, blaming it as the cause of bloodshed and hatred. Orphaned Land's frontman Kobi Farhi claims that metal is a kind of "religion".
Orphaned Land has developed a large following across the Middle East and North Africa as well as Iran, and have been described as "ambassadors of peace" for their message of unity, despite the heavy metal genre being considered taboo in, and with the State of Israel being considered an enemy of many of these countries. In 2013, Orphaned Land toured Europe with the Palestinian band Khalas which Farhi claims proved that Jewish-Muslim coexistence is possible. The two bands issued a split album with each other in 2021, entitled The Peace Series Vol. 1.
History
Resurrection (1991–1992)
At the start of the band's formation, they played "regular" death metal under the name "Resurrection", with the goal to sound like At the Gates, Morbid Angel, Death, Deicide, and other similar sounding bands, and sang about topics like "death from radiation decay." They quickly realized, however, that they are "from a different place, a place with different temperature, culture, and colours, that is also the source of all the monotheistic beliefs", as explained by frontman Kobi Farhi. The band chose to write music that better projected this, incorporating Middle Eastern and North African melodies and folk rhythms into their sound. In 1992, they changed their name to "Orphaned Land", believing that this name better suits their newer, more melodic style, which they dubbed oriental metal. This new style fused melodic death metal and melodic death-doom with elements of progressive metal, incorporating Middle Eastern and North African musical traditions as well as those of Mizrahi, Maghrebi Jewish, and Arabic origins, which has been described as a kind of early folk metal.Sahara, El Norra Alila, and hiatus (1993–2001)
In 1993, Orphaned Land released their demo The Beloved's Cry, and in 1994, they released their first album 'Sahara', in which the band reworked four of the demo's six songs and wrote four new ones.In 1996, they released their second album El Norra Alila, their first concept album, in which they amplified the "oriental" elements. The name of the album is based on the piyyut of the same name, which is recited during Yom Kippur as a plea of forgiveness, but also acts as a play on words using both Hebrew and Arabic, and can be translated as "God of Light, Evil of the Night," referring to the album's concept. The album also includes traditional Mizrahi piyyutim as songs, as well as sporadic use of Jewish liturgy, with heavier emphasis on Arabic melodies from their previous release. It explored the themes of light and darkness, conveying the message of commonality between the three main Abrahamic religions. This is a theme they would continue to use throughout their next three concept albums, as well.
After the release of El Norra Alila in 1996, Orphaned Land went into "this unknown hiatus", during which "nothing happened". However, in 2001, Farhi received an email from a Jordanian fan who sent him a video of himself revealing a tattoo of the Orphaned Land logo on his arm. Farhi, who was "shocked" by this, given the geopolitical circumstances, considers this the motivating factor to get the band back together, and began recording their next album. They played several shows in Tel Aviv and one in Turkey, their first show abroad. The Jordanian fan who sent Farhi the video came to the show in Turkey, where he brought an Arabic book written by an Egyptian sheikh about Satanism. The book, which detailed how to avoid Satanic groups in Egypt, displayed the lyrics to an Orphaned Land song that contains verses from the Quran. When asked for elaboration by Farhi, the fan explained how the Egyptian National Police raided an Egyptian metalhead's house and discovered a CD with this song on it; the Egyptian fan was sent to prison for six months as this was enough to charge him of blasphemy.
Mabool (2002–2009)
The band's third album, Mabool: The Story of the Three Sons of Seven was released in 2004, and was the band's second concept album. ""Mabool" is the Hebrew word for "flood", and refers to the Genesis flood narrative from which the album's concept, the band's reinterpretation of Noah's Ark, is derived. It tells the story of three sons who try to warn humanity of a flood coming as punishment for their sins. The album retains the "oriental" instruments from their previous two albums, and also includes two choruses, traditional Yemenite Jewish chants sung by Shlomit Levi, and quotes of biblical verses from chapters 6–9 in Genesis, read by Kobi Farhi.In 2005, Orphaned Land released the EP Ararat, named after Mount Ararat where Noah's Ark landed, which contains two demos of songs Mabool, and one reworked track from it, as well as a cover of the song Mercy from Paradise Lost. The band describes their first two concept albums as "a meeting of East and West, past and present, light and darkness, and a tango between God and Satan.
In 2008, Orphaned Land was featured in the documentary Global Metal, a film by the creators of Metal: A Headbanger's Journey.
The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR (2010–2012)
In January 2010, Orphaned Land released the follow-up to Mabool, and their fourth album, entitled The Never Ending Way of ORWarriOR. In Hebrew, the word "or" means "light", thus ORwarriOR can be translated as "light warrior" or "warrior of light", and is the band's third concept album. Like El Norra Alila, ORwarriOR explores themes light and darkness; this time the album is about the battle between the darkness, a place of questions, and the light, a place of answers. The album has a different sound than Mabool, was produced and mixed by Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree, and made free to download for any fan who lives in a "number of" MENA countries. 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, a sequel to a song from the deluxe edition of El Norra Alila. In early 2011, ORWarriOR was rated the Metal Storm number one progressive metal album of 2010 by users with 421/1130 total votes.On 22 May 2010, Orphaned Land performed as the opening act to Metallica's show in Israel. Orphaned Land then went on a festival tour in the summer of 2010, promoting The Never Ending Way of ORWarriOR, with appearances at festivals such as Wacken Open Air, Summer Breeze Open Air, Sonisphere Festival, Gods of Metal, Rock Hard Festival, and more. After the summer festival tour, Orphaned Land, along with Swallow the Sun, went on a North American tour in support of Katatonia. Orphaned Land then followed this with a tour of Europe alongside Ghost Brigade supporting Amorphis. In February 2011, Orphaned Land performed at the Riviera cultural festival at VIT University in Vellore, India. In February 2012, they returned to India and played at the Alcheringa festival at the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati.
On 19 June 2011, Orphaned Land performed at the Hellfest metal festival held in Clisson, France. Orphaned Land is known to employ belly dancers at their shows, however for this show, Lebanese belly dancer Johanna Fakhry reached out to Orphaned Land and requested to perform with the band there. While Kobi Farhi agreed to this request, he warned her that it could be dangerous for her. Fakhri decided to join them on stage anyway. At this performance, Farhi and Fakhry held up the Israeli and Lebanese flags side-by-side at the end of the concert as a gesture of peace. After word in Lebanon spread about this performance, Fakhry's parents expressed outrage towards her for this action, she was ridiculed online by Arab communities, and the Shia Islamist organization Hezbollah issued a death warrant to her. Fakhry has not returned to Lebanon since then, and has remained in France. According to Farhi, Orphaned Land has invited her to shows in Israel, but she has rejected the offers out of respect for her parents' wishes.
In 2011, Orphaned Land played two concerts in Israel to celebrate their 20th anniversary. On 24 October, the band released a live music and video album entitled The Road to Or-Shalem, featuring recordings of this concert to celebrate their milestone. On 11 June 2012, guitarist Matty Svatitzky announced his departure from the band, citing personal issues. Matti Svatitzky was replaced by Chen Balbus, a young musician who had performed live with them, previously.
In 2012 an online petition opened up requesting the Norwegian Nobel Committee consider Orphaned Land to be awarded the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize, which the band's label, Century Media Records, supported.