changed their name

At the start of the band’s formation, they played “regular” death metal under the name “Resurrection”, with the goal to sound like At the Gates , Morbid Angel , Death , Deicide , and other similar sounding bands, and sang about topics like “death from radiation decay.” They quickly realized, however, that they are “from a different place, a place with different temperature, culture, and colours, that is also the source of all the monotheistic beliefs”, as explained by frontman Kobi Farhi . The band chose to write music that better projected this, incorporating Middle Eastern and North African melodies and folk rhythms into their sound. In 1992, they changed their name to “Orphaned Land”, believing that this name better suits their newer, more melodic style, which they dubbed oriental metal . This new style fused melodic death metal and death-doom with elements of progressive metal , incorporating Middle Eastern and North African musical traditions as well as those of Mizrahi , Maghrebi Jewish , and Arabic origins, which has been described as a kind of early folk metal .