MABOOL - THE STORY OF THE THREE SONS OF SEVEN

The third studio releases by Orphaned land came after quite a long time with a few changes in the band’s line-up and new record label as well. ‘Mabool – The Story of Three Sons of Seven’ easily tops their other works. This album has a very nice combination of death-metal and Arabic folklores, and the proportion is very well balanced here. I’m not really into death metal, but I like this album.

And now, let’s straight into the tracks:

The album kicks off with the great opening track ‘Birth of the Three (The Unification)’. This track has a very nice metal-folk blend, with some growling, heavy voices and nice clean voices as well. Nice melody by guitar and some keyboard tunes as well. The female choir near the end really makes this track powerful and beautiful at the same times.

‘Ocean Land (The Revelation)’ starts with some nice acoustic parts, then the growl comes and it becomes heavier, but still a nice track. This track ends with some Muslim prayer-like voices. ‘The Kiss of Babylon (The Sins)’ kicks off with heavy riffs and some growling voices. There’re also some female voices here to balance the heavy side of this song. Another good combination between the metal and folk elements can be heard here as the song goes a bit softer from the middle part with some nice and quite catchy melody. This song ended with a female singing without any music. ‘A'salk’ continues the female singing from the previous track, and then you’ll hear some nice Arabic folk tunes provided by some acoustic guitar and percussions.

‘Halo Dies (The Wrath of God)’ is another nice blend of death metal and Arabic folk by the band, the opening part of this song is a good example for that. Some nice electric and acoustic guitar solos keyboard works as well here. This track is probably the heaviest track in this album, but it still has some nice softer parts in the middle part. ‘A Call to Awake (The Quest)’ is a quite nice balanced track that features some cool riffs and solos as well as some acoustic guitar tunes that blend well with the heavy sounds.

‘Building the Ark’ is a nice soft folk track, no metal elements here. Nice acoustic guitar and keyboard melody, and the combination of the female choirs and the male vocal are very well done. ‘Nora El Nora (Entering the Ark)’ has some nice acoustic guitar as the opening, then the riffs comes in and the song build up into a very nice folk metal track with some rather catchy tunes in it. The piano melody from the middle part through the end is really sweet.

‘The Calm before the Flood’ is a short calm track like its name. Nice acoustic guitar tunes here. The track continues with ‘Mabool (The Flood)’, which has a sweet orchestration part in the beginning with rain sound in the background. Then the riff comes with the drum beats, and the song goes heavier. The vocals here are sometimes a bit haunting, and in a few parts sounds like narrating and of course, growling. ‘The Storm Still Rages Inside’ is a continuation of the previous track. This song has some nice melody provided by guitar, some keyboard and bass lines too and there’re also some great guitar solos too here on some parts. There’s a stop for a moment and then the song continues with some acoustic tunes combined with heavy riffs and as the vocal sings and the female choirs end this track nicely. ‘Rainbow (The Resurrection)’ is a sweet closing track for this album. The acoustic guitar with some nature atmosphere in the background make you feel like you’re in a nice and peaceful place.

Overall, this is a great album. Unlike their previous works, I don’t have any problem with the vocals anymore. The singing here are all good, there isn’t any plain feeling at all. The compositions are good too, each songs work well with others. This album also feels more melodic than their previous ones. With this album, the band showed that they have improved a lot. But even though it’s a great album, I don’t think that this is a masterpiece of prog. This album deserves four and a half stars at its best. Highly recommended.