Mabool 2004

"Yup, this is a concept album alright! In fact, I think it's quite possibly the greatest metal concept album ever made! Yet, I wouldn't call it Orphaned Land's best album, overall. I'd give that accolade to El Norra Alila, and I would even call the Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR a better overall album than Mabool. But this is easily Orphaned Land's, and indeed possibly the metal genre's, best CONCEPT album. Once you listen to one song, you cannot not listen to the rest of them; they play so well after one another. Somehow Orphaned Land managed to make this album very cohesive, but diverse, yet highly refined despite pioneering a completely new style of metal, here. The last four songs, the Mabool suite, are a large reason why this is such a legendary and successful album - what a way to end such an epic album, perfectly tying together all the themes before them with a very satisfying climax and conclusion. Yossi Sassi's 4 minute long guitar solo on The Storm Still Rages Inside is one of the greatest of all time, up there in my opinion with Lynyrd Skynyrd's Free Bird. My biggest complaint with this album is that the production has not held up well since 2004, and a remix/remaster to make it as dynamic and clear as ORwarriOR is definitely warranted. In terms of sound, I would consider this to be a fusion of Twilight in Olympus-era Symphony X and Morningrise-era Opeth - that is, the melodic, yet virtuoso power metal riffing of the former with the darker production and more abrasive playing of the latter."