I've reading this forum and the official site for a while now but I never took part into any discussion until now.
I've been following Orphaned Land's career since the "El Norra Alila" days, which was heavily promoted by french magazines back in the day and they never failed to impress me (that would even be an understatement for "Mabool" which totally blew me away when I first heard it, and remains a regular favorite in my CD player to this day).
Of course, there was no way I could pass upon "The Neverending Way of ORwarriOR". As a matter of fact, I just received my limited edition digibook today!
As impatient as I may be, I cannot tell about the music yet. I'll have to wait tomorrow as its pretty late over here and I really want to play it loud on my sound system to give breath to the music and so that no cue is lost, which would trigger a raging war against my neighbors tonight ;-). So if you happen to walk down the streets of downtown Paris tomorrow evening (Wednesday) and hear some piece of the album, that may very well be me!
Now regarding the packaging, I was very afraid the digibook would get damaged during shipping but here it is, in perfect condition and it really looks awesome. I thought the cover of "Mabool" was already a piece of art of its own, but this is just a league of its own. From the rich deep red color of the cover, to the carefully crafted booklet, I cannot wait to hear what music may ride those words and tell the story that this beautiful book incarnates. Being very sensitive to spoilers, I have heard nothing of it until now besides the background music during the album teaser video, so tomorrow will be the great dive...
Similar to another member of the forum, I was a bit sad at first to see the signatures on the front "paper flyer" instead of the digibook itself but I get your point Morticia. It's true some people wouldn't like to see any mark on this perfect packaging and the others all have their own opinion about where the signatures would best fit : on the front cover, back cover, on page 2, 10, etc... So I guess I'll have to find a way to catch the band members during the Parisian show!
I wasn't aware of this show until today by the way, that's great news! Last time I looked, nothing was planned besides festivals, and as much as I enjoyed their performance at the Wacken Open Air 2006 (my first and only time seeing them perform), I really want to see them headlining a show in a proper indoor venue. I expect nothing less than magic!
PS : The ORwarriOR poster that came with my order was a nice bonus as well! Unfortunately, it didn't make it here in perfect state due to its fragile nature. Perhaps it gave its own life for the digibook to get here unharmed?
