It has been way too long since I’ve been to a death metal show. The last one that I attended must have been Maryland Deathfest 09’. Maybe I was burned out? More likely, it was just due to the lack of good death metal tours around here. Summer Slaughter doesn’t tickle my balls and the rest of the fests are balls. Luckily, I heard that the new undisputed kings of tech death were coming into town: Origin.

Now, I’m not a big tech death fan. Normally, I find the genre to be a hodgepodge of poorly written songs spit shined into seeming acceptable with abnormally good musicianship. Some bands pull it off. Cryptopsy practically invented the genre and certain groups like Necrophagist have reached an almost legendary status in only a matter of years. Origin never had this effect on me. I must admit that I have heard barely anything from their albums before Antithesis and quite frankly do not care. From the snippets I’ve heard on Youtube and from fellow metal heads they were always described as a competent, but forgettable death metal band only remembered for their insane speed and playing ability. Hearing remarks like this automatically put them on my shit list because for me, riffs and songwriting are everything. Plus, with Dream Theater being my favorite band, sheer tech alone cannot impress me.

Upon the release of Antithesis, the group started getting an abnormally high level of exposure and I had heard the song The Aftermath numerous times over passing months. Still impressed by the technique, but not thrilled by the actual songwriting I wrote them off as just another death metal band, leaders in a sea of mundane and uninspiring blast beats and bed room guitarists.

One day I was sitting in the school library when the song had appeared to me once more. I put on my headphones and gave it another try and something clicked. I know exactly what happened. It is the same thing that has happened to me with many other bands. It took listening to them a specific way to get it. Every time before this I heard the band on shitty computer speakers without enough bass or loud enough to hear the clarity in the songs. This time it clicked. I bought Antithesis and still think it is an extremely good album, and easily one of the best tech death albums this side of Cryptopsy.

So when my friend told me they were playing this week and for only twelve bucks, I had to go. We smoked a bowl, drank a few beers, and showed up at the concert hoping to get there just in time to miss some opening bands, but have no chance of missing Origin.

Fortunately, we missed the first two bands. Unfortunately, we still had two more. The first guys up were Defied, a slam death metal band that I was unfamiliar with before hand. Surprisingly they were quite good by slam death standards. There were a couple really cool riffs spread throughout the songs and the vocalist had amazing stage presence. The band seemed to really enjoy themselves and if they had played a good half of a set shorter I would have said that they played a nice set. Unfortunately, they did go on too long and by the eighth song in a row with a two minute long breakdown I needed more beer.

Next was Lurid State, another band from Phoenix who I had seen ads for before. They as well were slam death, but even worse than Defied. They had not a single riff that I can remember nor anything worth remembering at all. I sat down against the back wall waiting for Origin to start up and eventually got bored, running into guitarist Paul Ryan at the merch booth and buying an Antithesis pin for my denim (No patches!?). I talked with him for a while and we exchanged information for a possible interview in the future. It wasn’t long after this that they started to set up their equiptment.

The first thing that we noticed was that their former singer James Lee was nowhere to be found. Instead was a skinnier white dude that I later found out to be from one of the earlier lineups of The Faceless. I was disappointed as James Lee had quite literally large shoes to fill and I was anticipating his performance more than anything, but the new dude did not disappoint. He was a good sport with the new fans and kept the energy going. They started playing through plenty of favorites off of Antithesis when they started to play their single The Aftermath. That’s when the guitars went out. Ryan did his best, but he ultimately needed to borrow a head from one of the other bands to finish the set, unfortunately missing the entire song. Luckily, the band were good sports and kept churning along. It almost was a sort of happy accident, as Mike Flores continued to play bass expertly and the audience could hear every note. It was in reality one of the best bass solos I ever heard! Add to the fact that the new singer showed the band as good sports and proceeded to shred his best air guitar solo that he could.

Other songs were played from the rest of the albums before they closed their set and said goodnight. They luckily played the right length for a death metal show, being around an hour and we said our goodbyes to the band and went off. I forgot how chill and down to earth death metal musicians are in real life and I wish that the death core guys would take a cue both in their music and in their personality.

Set List: Starring From the Abyss, The Aftermath, Vomit You Out, Wrath of Vishnu, Finite, Implosion of Eternity, Reciprocal, The Burner, Disease Called Man, Perversion of Hate, The Beyond Within, Antithesis, Portal