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Origin: Antithesis

25/04/08 || The Duff

Origin, for me, are a band that has never managed to break into amazing territory because they failed to follow-up on an incredibly important sophomore album with something equally outstanding. It is true that their mix of death and grind is touched by few in terms of how loud and ugly the music gets, but the fact remains that with “Echoes of Decimation”, the band departed from the ability to write memorable tracks along with long-time members Jeremy Turner and human drum machine John Longstreth. The album was kept necessarily short, but at the same time, the uber-tight musicianship wasn’t enough to carry the album, something that demoted the band from exceptional status to regular, same old shit. So now the original line-up is back, what with Jeremy having finished with Unmerciful and John with a brief interval with Skinless and a couple of other things I’m entirely oblivious to, and Origin hit us with their fourth full-length effort three years on from their last effort.

Once I heard the opening track on their MySpace page, I had to shell out for the pre-order – “The Aftermath” definitely gave the impression the band was back in force, even though there was still the odd moment of tedium, specifically the ongoing sweeping; it’s true that throughout the album, you have some of Origin’s most purposeful arpeggios, but at the same time you also get their most redundant. Luckily, they don’t appear nearly as frequently as on “Echoes of Decimation”, and so I suspect such a blind devotion to the art is coming from Paul Ryan – hey, I don’t mind the guy’s death metal approach; some of the tracks he has written on “Antithesis” are some of the band’s best, but the same fucken sweep pattern (even the same fucken notes) played as quickly as possible time and time again leaves me no alternative but to shut down every time it crops up.

I get a big Nile vibe on this (especially “Wrath of Vishnu”, “The Beyond Within” and “Antithesis”), and it’s a real shame, but they aren’t writing material surpassing the leaders of exotic scales – the plus is that these tracks are pretty damn fucken good (all written by Ryan, oddly enough, who in my mind wrote all of the best tracks on “Antithesis”; the only filler, i.e. riffs repeated too many times/the same old tricks etc., comes from Turner and bassist Flores – surprising, as I really dig Unmerciful).

The production on “Antithesis” is too fuzzy to my ears – you can’t hear the bass, and although the mix may be complementary to the guitars, tech death does demand more clarity. When all the other instruments cut out to leave just the one guitar, the sound is totally horrendous. The one thing that truly shines with this production is John’s drumming, which is phenomenal – it would appear as though Origin have taken after Suffocation with their self-titled in that they are putting the drums out in the lead to awesome effect (the snare sounds terrific).

My final complaint is that the leads on this thing are slightly hit and miss – to my mind the first Origin album to have some proper solos, the phrasing is occasionally off and there is a complete absence of feel; I don’t get how you can avoid the development of feel in your playing when you’ve worked so hard to get up to the standard as demanded by the tech death clique, but the Origin guitarists seem to have succeeded such a feat admirably – the soloing is welcome, it just could have been executed to a better degree. When it comes to a track like “Antithesis” (about ten minutes in length – a bold statement in the death metal world that largely succeeds), the lack of any emotion in the leads towards the end means the track could and should have been cut back several minutes.

Overall, I’m finding the material to be satisfactory; sometimes though Origin fail to deliver to the fullest as they digress into the tired, bordering the parody style of death metal occupied by bands such as old Decrepit Birth and all of Disgorge (USA). This is a shame, because even if “Echoes…” was uninspired, at least it had some value to anyone wanting a fast and furious experience with some ace musicianship to boot. On “Antithesis”, Origin are trying to branch out (the more than doubled track lengths should be some indication of this), and sometimes it works, sometimes they’re just rehashing what some rather unsuccessful bands have already written to the dismay of many – technically impressive, but entirely unstimulating.

“Antithesis” does take some time to fully get into, but at the same time I feel death metal has moved on from this; bands like Odious Mortem and even old-timers Suffocation are far more interesting at the brutal American thing. So yeah, I’m impressed, but I doubt I’ll visit this more than even “Echoes…” – Origin just seem to be a little too repetitive, playing the same old thing, and brutality can only support a band so far.

7 bands that aren’t Psycroptic out of 10.

Information
Released: 2008
Label: Relapse Records
Website: Origin MySpace
Band
James Lee: vocals
Jeremy Turner: guitars, vocals
Paul Ryan: guitars, vocals
Mike Flores: bass, vocals
John Longstreth: drums

Tracklist
01. The Aftermath
02. Algorithm
03. Consuming Misery
04. Wrath of Vishnu
05. Finite
06. The Appalling
07. Void
08. Ubiquitous
09. The Beyond Within
10. Antithesis

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