Orpheus Blade – “Wolf’s Cry” [Album Review]

Hailing from the mighty and exotic Israel, Orpheus Blade is an extremely well-oiled machine that pumps out world class, Prog/Heavy Metal – their brand new album, Wolf’s Cry, being indisputable proof of this. This sort of quasi-conceptual journey (which took several years to spawn) seems to lyrically revolve around introspective visions that exude drama, existential angst, and an unusual level of delicacy. This is likely due in large to the band’s leading figure, female vocalist Adi Britan, who has been at the creative forefront of the project since the beginning.

The album offers up a plethora of dissimilar atmospheres. One can easily notice such contrasts in tracks like the metallic show-stopper “The Becoming” or the melodic roller-coaster “Dismissal” – the latter of which definitely serves as some kind of guiding entity traveling through an unparalleled series of sonic and emotional dimensions. That being said, this notion could be applied to the album in its entirety. Its suggestive conceptual nature tends to work better as a long, cohesive journey from beginning to end. This definitely wasn’t crafted for the pleasure of those one-hit-wonder hunters out there.

Given its cinematic allure, high production values, and powerhouse performances, it would be easy to draw comparisons between Orpheus Blade’s material and the work of some of its revered predecessors (ex: Queensryche). However, that would be unfair. As Wolf’s Cry demonstrates with its many twists and turns and distinctive musical panache, this band is genuinely focused on giving the world of Metal a distinctive new voice. This is a collective with a promising career ahead… These wolves just need to keep barking at the moon as powerfully as they do throughout this outstanding recording.

Track Listing:

01. Shadows Still
02. The Finest Art of Feeding
03. The Becoming
04. Under Dying Stars
05. In Sickness and in Hell
06. The Death of All Morrows
07. Dismissal
08. In Terms of Twilight
09. Because He’s Made of Flesh
10. For Each Man Kills
11. Chronicles
12. The Man Who Cried Wolf
13. Shapeshifter

Run Time: 57:47
Release Date: May 11, 2015

Check out the song “The Becoming” here.