Progressive metal is a broad fusion music genre melding heavy metal and progressive rock, combining the loud "aggression" and amplified guitar-driven sound of the former with the more experimental, cerebral or quasi-classical compositions of the latter.
Arch Enemy is a Swedish melodic death metal band, originally a supergroup from Halmstad, formed in 1995. Its members were in bands such as Carcass, Armageddon, Carnage, Mercyful Fate, Spiritual Beggars, The Agonist, Nevermore, and Eucharist. It was founded by Carcass guitarist Michael Amott along with Johan Liiva, who were both originally from the death metal band Carnage. The band has released eleven studio albums, three live albums, three video albums and four EPs. The band was originally fronted by Johan Liiva, who was replaced by German vocalist Angela Gossow in 2000. Gossow left the band in March 2014 to become the group's manager and was replaced by Canadian vocalist Alissa White-Gluz.
Orphaned Land is an Israeli metal band formed in 1991. They are known to combine Mizrahi and Maghrebi Jewish, Arabic, Turkish, and other Middle Eastern and North African musical elements, with metal, as well as from Sephardic music, and other sounds from the Mediterranean. They have also included "metalized" versions of various piyyutim in all of their albums since El Norra Alila. The band are considered to be the pioneers of oriental metal. Orphaned Land have gone through several lineup changes over the years, but have retained two founding members of the band, Kobi Farhi (vocals) and Uri Zelcha (bass). They are joined by Matan Shmuely (drums), Chen Balbus (guitars/saz) who replaced co-founding member Matti Svatizky in 2011, and Idan Amsalem (guitars/bouzouki) who replaced co-founding member Yossi Sassi in early 2014. Their lyrics promote a message of peace and unity, particularly between the three main Abrahamic religions. The name "Orphaned Land" comes from the lyrics of a Yehuda Poliker song and reflects "a paradox" to the term "Holy Land." Four of their six albums are concept albums relating to the concept of Light and darkness.
Salem is an Israeli extreme metal band, pioneers of the oriental metal movement and of the Israeli heavy metal scene in general. Much of their lyrics and music deals with political issues concerning the Jewish people and Israel, most notably the concept albums Kaddish (1994) and Collective Demise (2002).
Dan-Erland Swanö, also known as Dan "The Man" Swanö, is a Swedish musician and record producer who is currently the vocalist, guitarist, ex-bassist and ex-drummer for the band Nightingale, lately vocalist, keyboardist and drummer for the band Witherscape, as well as the owner of Unisound, but he achieved fame as the vocalist and songwriter of progressive death metal band Edge of Sanity.
Angela Nathalie Gossow is a German vocalist, best known as the former lead singer for the Swedish melodic death metal band Arch Enemy. Her other previous bands include Asmodina and Mistress.
Wages of Sin is the fourth studio album by Swedish melodic death metal band Arch Enemy. It is the first Arch Enemy album to feature the vocals of Angela Gossow, and their first to feature a female vocalist. It is also their first album recorded in C tuning, starting a trend which continues across their discography. Wages of Sin was released on 25 April 2001 in Japan, but the European and American releases were delayed until 18 March 2002.
Mats Levén is a Swedish singer. Some of his most notable collaborations have been with guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen, symphonic metallers Therion and doom metallers Candlemass. In 2011, due to family issues on the part of Firewind's lead singer Apollo, Levén was called in to substitute for the rest of their European tour. He also started touring with Trans-Siberian Orchestra in 2016. In 2019, he released his first solo album under the name Skyblood. In 2022, he became a member of Vandenberg which is led by the well known guitarist, Adrian Vandenberg.
Mabool: The Story of the Three Sons of Seven is the third full-length studio album by the Israeli metal band Orphaned Land. It was released on February 23, 2004 through Century Media Records. One limited edition version of the album has a bonus CD entitled The Calm Before the Flood containing live acoustic tracks, while another limited edition version was released by Profound Lore Records as a 2-LP album with alternate cover art in a clear wax case limited to only 500 copies. Two videos were made for the album, one for the song "Ocean Land" and the other for the song "Norra el Norra", and were the band's first music videos. Mabool is Orphaned Land's second concept album. "Mabool" (מבול) is the Hebrew word for "flood," and refers to the Genesis flood narrative from which the album's concept, the band's reinterpretation of Noah's Ark, is derived.
Kobi Farhi is an Israeli musician, lead singer and founder of Oriental metal band Orphaned Land.
Sahara is the first full-length studio album by the Israeli metal band Orphaned Land, released on November 25, 1994 by French label Holy Records. The 2002 digipak re-release of the album features three bonus tracks: "Above You All", "Pits of Despair" and "The Beloved's Cry " and edited cover art. The songs "Seasons Unite", "The Beloveds Cry", "My Requiem", "Orphaned Land – The Storm Still Rages Inside..." are all from the demo The Beloved's Cry.
Metal is the twelfth album by Canadian heavy metal band Annihilator, released on April 16, 2007, by SPV/Steamhammer. However, it wasn't released in the United States until January 15, 2008. The album includes several special guests who each contribute to separate tracks. This includes Danko Jones, Angela Gossow, Steve "Lips" Kudlow, Alexi Laiho, Anders Björler, Michael Amott, Jesper Strömblad, Corey Beaulieu, Jacob Lynam and William Adler.
El Norra Alila is the second full-length studio album by the Israeli metal band Orphaned Land, released on July 18, 1996 by Holy Records. It is the band's first concept album. The album was reissued as a deluxe edition in July 2006 as a 10-year-anniversary for the album and contains extras; the song "Disciples of the Sacred Oath" and video clips of "Ornaments of Gold" and "The Evil Urge".
The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR is the fourth full-length studio album by the Israeli metal band Orphaned Land. The album was released on January 25, 2010, after many delays. In Hebrew, the word "or" (אור) means "light," thus ORwarriOR can be translated as "light warrior" or "warrior of light", representing a conceptual hero of the battle of light versus darkness. The Never Ending Way of ORWarriOR is Orphaned Land's third concept album and is about the battle between the darkness, a place of questions, and the light, a place of answers. The band related the concept to lighting a match in a dark room; without the match one cannot see anything, but with it one can see more, including the answers to the questions one has about the room before having lit the match. In this regard, "the warrior of light," the answers to unknown questions, is one's inner light, and not some messianic figure, and that to awaken the ORwarriOR, one must use their inner light to enlighten their inner soul, and find the answers they seek. This is an analogy to the band's belief that "there isn't any difference between you and your enemy." The album was mixed by Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree. It is the last album to feature guitarist Matti Svatizky who left the band in 2012.
Rise of the Tyrant is the seventh studio album by Swedish melodic death metal band Arch Enemy. It was produced by Fredrik Nordström and released on 24 September 2007 via Century Media.
Amaseffer is an Israeli progressive metal band which was formed in 2004 in Tel Aviv by drummer and percussionist Erez Yohanan, and guitarist Yuval Kramer. A year later, a second guitarist Hanan Avramovich joined and completed the line-up. This is also when the band got its name "Amaseffer" - from Hebrew "Am Ha'Sefer" - People of the (holy) book; a name from the Old Testament for the Israelites and later for the Jewish People. The band's music genre is considered progressive metal, but it contains a mixture of rock, metal, world music and Middle Eastern touches.
Amaranthe is a Swedish heavy metal band originally known as Avalanche. The band is notable for their blend of various metal genres and having three lead vocalists.
Alissa White-Gluz is a Canadian singer, best known as the lead vocalist of the Swedish melodic death metal band Arch Enemy, and former lead vocalist and founding member of the Canadian metalcore band the Agonist. Her vocal style includes both growling and clean vocals (singing). Although primarily associated with melodic death metal and metalcore, she has appeared as a guest vocalist for power metal, symphonic metal and deathcore bands, notably Kamelot, Delain, Carnifex and Powerwolf, and has performed live with Nightwish and Tarja Turunen.
Unsung Prophets and Dead Messiahs is the sixth studio album by the Israeli oriental metal band, Orphaned Land, and was released on January 26, 2018. It is the first album to feature guitarist Idan Amsalem who replaced multi-instrumentalist and lead guitarist, Yossi Sassi, a founding member of the band, in 2014.
Leviathan is the seventeenth studio album by Swedish symphonic metal band Therion. It was released on 22 January 2021 by Nuclear Blast Records. It is the first part in Leviathan trilogy, its sequels Leviathan II and Leviathan III were released on 2022 and 2023 respectively.
[1] 
[4] 