### Origin: Echoes of decimation

#### 20/05/11 || Daemonomania

Feel like Duff should be writing this one, but since he made fun of me in his recent Intronaut review, fuck that. By the way, I won’t come anywhere near an engorged erection until I’ve downed at least 2 large burritos and four Corona Extras. With a slice of lime in each. Thank you very much. Plus he doesn’t seem to be too interested in Origin’s unrelenting display of facepunchery (surprising given the fact that he enjoys brutaldeath/goregrind/pornogrind/deathvomit/techdump). So Daemo to the rescue it is.

I ORIGINally started out with Kansas’ fabulous five after getting my nuts imploded by “Antithesis”, an album so unrelenting that haters of metal are easily justified in their nothing but noise argument by its very existence. Blast blast blast goes the disc, with the vocals etc. pushed to the background to avoid any illusion of friendliness towards the listener. No wait, I started out by seeing them open for Dying Fetus on the “Death Across America” tour way back in my early college days – so long ago that IG hadn’t even heard of death metal, let alone had his eyes reddened by cascading waterfalls of baby batter. Only about 9 years needed to elapse in order for me to subsequently pick up one of Origin’s releases! Talk about a memorable set.

So I had the Vishnu bug and felt the need to head into the brutal backcountry. It’s been a rewarding journey. “Antithesis” has such a loud drum production that the rest of the band is often crushed beneath ten tons of Longstreth. “Echoes”, on the other hand, has a much drier, quieter production job that suits the band’s faster-than-thou songs well. And it ain’t Longo behind the kit. I do miss the depth provided by a spiffier twiddle of the knobs, but you don’t have to worry about your ears turning back or turning black and falling off during the speedy bits.

Being that this is Origin, after all, there are plenty of those. Trademarks remain intact: that sweep picking shit, those high-low growl tradeoffs, and the inhuman drumwork. The dudes abuse their instruments for under 30 minutes, so the whole affair feels like a brief adreno-rush and not an endurance test. I deeply dig “Staring into the abyss”, “Amoeba”, “The burner”, and at that point what ze hay, there’s only about ten minutes of joyful brain busting left. Might as well go for it. To bring this review to a similarly fleet finale, please check out both “Echoes” and the score below. You noisy death people should eat this up like a pair of burritos basted in cheap beer and nutsauce.

- Information
- Released: 2005
- Label: Relapse
- Website: Origin MySpace
- Band
- James Lee: vocals
- Paul Ryan: guitars
- Clint Appelhanz: guitars
- Mike Flores: bass
- James King: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Reciprocal
- 02. Endless Cure
- 03. The Burner
- 04. Designed to Expire
- 05. Cloning the Stillborn
- 06. Staring From the Abyss
- 07. Amoeba
- 08. Debased Humanity
- 09. Echoes of Decimation