Orphaned Land is an Israeli Metal band that was originally active for most of the 90s, went on a brief hiatus, then reformed in 2001. The band’s primary ethos for most of its existence has been using music as a way to bring people together to bridge religious, ethnic, and cultural divides.
A large part of this has been spinning Jewish, Muslim, and Christian stories into their own mythology that centres largely around angelic personifications of the three religions. Now, based on the listener’s own convictions, that may not sit well with everyone, but trying to bring people together is laudable in its own right.
From the band’s 2004 concept album Mabool — given that “Mabool” is Hebrew for “flood”, you can probably guess at what that specific concept is — comes Ocean Land. Now, Ocean Land isn’t the part of the album where the Flood actually happens (that would be, unsurprisingly, Mabool).
Based on my read of the song, Ocean Land is the warning that the Flood is approaching:
We see an ocean once was land
Lyrics via Genius.
And so they come to understand
This place where man used to be born
Will be man’s water throne
That warning is promptly ignored, the rain starts, the Flood happens, and everybody dies:
The sand in the hourglass
Lyrics via Genius.
Moves so fast, slow the sand
And nothing that mankind has strived for will be left
In ocean land
Orphaned Land isn’t the only Metal band to draw on Middle-Eastern music, but Middle-Eastern influenced Folk Metal bands are probably rare enough that Orphaned Land will be a unique listening experience, unless maybe you’ve done a really deep dive in international Folk Metal:
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