What the hell is this? Melody and diversity in an Origin album? More than just skull-pummeling fury and seething insanity? Oh wait, they started that with Antithesis. So the thing you may be wondering about Entity, with its decidedly more varied structure and properties, a huge step in a new direction for Origin — does it still blow your face off? The answer is an unequivocal and resounding yes.

On Entity, everything’s tighter, heavier, and the pressure contained within is closer than ever to combustion. It’s still an album bursting with insanely quick, hateful, technical death metal that the Kansans have come to be known for, but it’s also flecked with progressive dissonance and a furious hate-groove comparable to what Skinless or Dying Fetus have done. Rather than a rip from other sources, though, the album takes on the form of an expansion upon the new sounds brought to light in Antithesis.

Entity is the first Origin album since the departure of James Lee on vocals, but guitarist Paul Ryan and bassist Mike Flores (both of whom previously did Origin’s backing vocals) do a fine job of recreating the extremes in vocal range and intensity needed to properly complement such relentless material. They, along with guitarist Jeremy Turner, also push the limits of human capabilities in terms of playing stringed instruments. Listen to “Conceiving Death,” “Swarm,” or “Fornever,” all of which are mind-warpingly rapid and vicious, yet still remarkably clean and calculated. Then there’s “Consequence of Solution,” an amorphous tune that runs the gamut from hyperfast blasting by John Longstreth — which is so quick a machine couldn’t do it — to serious death groove, and “Evolution of Extinction,” a nonstop onslaught of riffs, double bass and rage until its dying notes, which carry the listener out in a head-nodding gallop. Each track is unmistakably Origin, yet stands out hugely from its predecessor, unlike older material from the likes of Informis Infinitas Inhumanitas.

Entity will leave an imprint on your brain more permanent than death. If it doesn’t, you aren’t hearing it. Origin have always been hailed as leaders of the extreme metal scene, but now more than ever, their creative output has expanded and swallowed whole their competitors, spitting out bones of weaker entities along the path to infinity.

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