So this is a guest post by Tanmay Singh who was nice enough to write one for the blog. Just a heads up, he's a lot more adept and a lot more technical when it come to writing about music than me. So don't get used to it. Check out his brilliant blog and you'll have a better idea of what I'm saying. Just come back to my blog after you've been there.
I'm not Coomar, but I've been told that I look like him. Somehow that translates into guest post rights on his blog, so here we are. Also, I may look like him, but I'm infinitely more badass, because I listen to Metal, so here's one about a metal song.
The band I chose was Orphaned Land, for a variety of reasons. First, Coomar said I could write on whatever I want, so I had to restrict the scope somehow, and I got scared by the idea, this is just what was playing at the time. Second, they're touring India in Feb (next month at the time of writing the post), so they're just very relevant right now. Third, they really are very very good, I promise.
The song I chose was Ocean Land (The Revelation), for two reasons. One, simply because it's my favourite Orphaned Land song. Second, because this is not a metal blog, and the song is not all that metal. There's no crazy blast beats, the guitars are not crassly tuned, the production is not purposely shoddy, and most importantly the vocals are mostly clean, with growls taking a backseat. Not a complete backseat, somethings you just can't do with plain clean vocals.
Wikipedia tells me Orphaned Land fuse progressive, doom, and death metal as well as Middle-Eastern folk music and Arabic traditions in a form of Oriental metal. I generally don't go by Wikipedia genre definitions, but this is spot on. They're four albums old, having released their latest in 2010. The song I'm talking about comes from their third album Mabool: The Story of the Three Sons of Seven.
Mabool is a concept, as are most Orphaned Land albums. The concept discussed here are about the three sons of God, one each corresponding to the three Abrahamic religions (Seven, of course, referring to God). So basically the three sons, try to warn mankind about the sins they're committing, and predict the coming of a great flood as punishment if they don't stop.
And in this theme, Ocean Land serves as the actual warning to mankind. So it's basically this apocalyptic song about how all land that we inhabit will eventually turn to ocean. You should read the lyrics while listening to the song, and keeping the theme and concept in mind. Really chilling.
The lyrics are really awesome too. Consisting of narrative segments (not spoken word though, just in the song), and quotes of what the "three sons" are actually saying to mankind. Some good apocalyptic warning type poetry to be found here. Consider this: "The sand in the hourglass, moves so fast, slow the sand/ And nothing that mankind has strived for will be left in ocean land". Right?
There's a brilliant guitar solo to be found here. Simply unmissable. Goes very well with the theme too. It's a very pleading, persuasive kind of solo. But I guess it just seems that way if you keep the concept album theme in mind. Even if you don't, the solo's still brilliant. So win-win, I guess.
There's very noticeable folk influences, particularly in the beginning and the end of the song, which starts with what I assume Hebrew folk music would sound like. I don't know what Hebrew folk music sounds like, but I expect it wouldn't be much different from the intro to the song. The outro is also extremely Hebrew folkish, and in fact sounds like some sort of shepherd music, I don't know, if you disagree, please drop a line in the comments section. But it really does sound like that, to me.
So basically, there's two ways to listen to this song. One is just as a song by itself. If that be the case, then it's an amazing song, with some great riffing, catchy vocals and very fitting drumming. The overall sound is wonderful, and the production flawless. It's worth headbanging to as well. The second way to listen to the song is to go behind the lyrics, understand the concept, and view it in context with the theme. Whichever method you choose, I'm sure you'll find that you've spent your five minutes very well.
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