Band:	Origin
Album:	Omnipresent
Style:	Technical death metal
Release date:	July 04, 2014
A review by:	Mattybu

01. All Things Dead
02. Thrall:Fulcrum:Apex
03. Permanence
04. Manifest Desolate
05. Absurdity Of What I Am
06. Source Of Icon O
07. Continuum
08. Unattainable Zero
09. Redistribution Of Filth
10. Obsolescence
11. Malthusian Collapse
12. The Indiscriminate
13. Kill Yourself [S.O.D. cover]

Anyone play soccer or some other sport as a kid? Remember when the team went to the pizza restaurant after the game, and when the kiddies got bored they sat there and poured anything they could find on the table into one horrifying concoction? The salt, the pepper, the ice cream, maybe spit in the drink a bit for good measure.


Unfortunately, a lot of the time listening to Origin's Omnipresent can be equated to chugging down one of those disgusting mixtures. On their own, each ingredient in that drink has a purpose (well, maybe not the spit), but if you try and cram it all together at once it isn't so pleasant. When this album tries to cram completely in-your-face blastbeats and frantic guitar lines that mix rapid picking and noodling sweep mayhem down your throat it can just feel like too much.

Then again, the album slows down (in relative terms, it's all still pretty fast paced) at times and it turns out there are some cool riffs there and songs that you can get into the flow of. From a rhythmic point of view a song like "Manifest Desolate" gives more room for the guitar work to breathe, and is one of the more interesting tracks as a result. At the best points on this album, all the instruments gel in a way that isn't totally overwhelming. There are some good moments of otherworldly and strange guitar lines which actually sound unique as well. The short length of the album (a little over 30 minutes) is also a plus, as dragging an album like this out much longer would not be helping it any.

Clearly, based on the content of this and the previous Origin albums, these guys are very talented musicians. Performing the sweep picked arpeggios and blasting out beats at the tempos these songs go along at is not easy. The problem is, that extremely high level of talent doesn't always translate into great songwriting. Sometimes it just seems like mayhem for mayhem's sake, and at those times it's hard to care much about Omnipresent. It makes for an album which isn't always so memorable either.

The final word - Origin fans should probably be satisfied with this. Not much has changed since 2011's Entity. I'll admit that implementing a high degree of technicality into memorable and concisely written songs is no easy task. Omnipresent, despite some great moments, just seems too intent on stuffing too much down your throat at once to accomplish it fully.