★★★★★
Grindcore's over so fast no one can tell how good the performance actually was. Origin fixes that by slowing down just enough - two minutes, even four! - to appreciate the mastery with which Paul Ryan sizzles strings and John Longstreth rattles skins. The Kansas quartet's sixth punisher,
- www.austinchronicle.com
2014-10-23
★★★★★
The underground metal community's collective hard-on for deriding anything and everything technical is becoming as stale and cliché as they purport the music itself to be. To chastise a tech death band on the basis of their virtuosity would be to say that Merzbow is too noisy and thus lacks artistic credibility or something to that effect. Indeed, it's easy to find fault with something when you assess it via criteria that characteristically demonises everything a subject stands for...
- www.sputnikmusic.com
2014-07-08
★★★★★
When it comes to technical death metal, the catalogue of Kansas band Origin is spotless. Their latest effort, , is no different. The follow-up to 2011's impeccable is just as impressive, filled with Origin's brand of super intense, blasting tech-death. showcases founding member Paul Ryan's skilful guitar work and songwriting prowess; he has further honed the tricky balance between over-the-top, arpeggio-sweeping technicality ("Permanence") and straightforward, groovy aggression ("Absurdity of...
- exclaim.ca
2014-07-08
★★★★★
So far 2014 has been a terrific year for death metal. We got a new record, adding another chapter to their already freakishly consistent discography; 's sophomore release, which stands to be one of the best homages to old-school death metal of the last few years; new albums from death veterans and , which pummel you with hellish riffs and a morose doom feel comparable to slowly sinking into a vat of metallic quicksand; and now are here with their sixth full-length - - serving as the technical...
- www.sputnikmusic.com
2014-07-08
★★★★★
"'Entity' is an amazingly heavy, well-written and surprisingly catchy tech metal album that's more accessible than the band's previous work, while not changing Origin's sound dramatically." My first impression of "Entity" was highly negative, entirely because the awesomely processed guitar tone from "Antithesis" was replaced with one that was far more organic sounding...
- www.metalunderground.com
2011-06-13
★★★★★
The world of extreme, technical death metal is an interesting kettle of fish. On one hand you have bands with albums full of insane levels of musicianship and heartstoppingly impressive tunes, while on the other hand have the same quality of musicianship, but instead creating sterile, dull music. Well, what side of the fence does Origin's "Entity" fall on, I hear your cry...
- www.smnnews.com
2011-05-23
★★★★★
Kansas five-piece Origin sport the death/grind equivalent of the "wall of sound," a constant, all-encompassing barrage of drums, bass, guitar and powerful screaming. Raging blast beats double up then stop on a dime, the twin guitar attack of Paul Ryan and Clint Appelhanz alternately throttling low, chugging notes, then accelerating into screeching lead lines...
- www.hour.ca
2010-11-02
★★★★★
Those in the know worried when, in early 2006, Origin drummer James King and long-time guitarist and bassist Clint Appelhanz left the group, creating doubt that anyone would ever recapture the impenetrably dense intensity of 2005's Echoes of Decimation. Antithesis proves that those fears are unfounded within about 1.4 seconds of the opening track, and continues through 41 minutes of brain-fucking extreme brutal death metal to set a new standard for speed and complexity in design...
- www.hour.ca
2010-11-02
★★★★★
A funny thing happens midway through the third spin of Antithesis. Drummer John Longstreth's inhuman hailstorm of triggered gravity blasts starts to release its stranglehold, revealing a death-metal album with a higher craft to brutality ratio than we're used to from Origin's previous three records...
- www.prefixmag.com
2009-06-08