Origin - Informis Infinitas Inhumanitas (2002)

It's cliched AND dishonest to summarize the evolution of metal as "faster and heavier" when you remember that genres other than death and black metal exist. However, I think it's an interesting case study to observe the parallels in how non-metalheads view metal in general, vs how fans of oldschool death metal view newer takes on the genre. The music becomes less accessible and narrows its audience as it starts to follow less and less music "rules", such as the tension-release principle, dynamics, or some kind of repetition to establish a structure. Death metallers who like the oldschool sound, but not brutal or technical death metal, usually criticize the latter for lacking breathing room, therefore becoming grating to listen to very quickly. Of course, one can enjoy both, but many fans draw a line. Funnily enough, non-metalheads have the same perception of any death metal (and probably can't tell the difference between its subgenres), hell, even many metalheads hear it that way.

But the oldschool death metallers are right about something - as sonically dense as death metal is, most songs do slow down eventually, and give the listener some groove to latch on. Your Suffocations and Cryptopsies can be deceptively catchy and not that hard to get into. Origin's self-titled debut has that going for it, while "Informis Infinitas Inhumanitas", in a decidedly non-oldschool fashon, omits any groove whatsoever. Actually, "Informis..." does slow down, but the harsh, squashed production, nigh omnipresent double bass and frantic cymbals (even in slower sections) don't give that impression. It's technically wrong to say it sounds "the same", but it may feel that way. With the overall push to extremity and the drop of more accessible sections to anchor that extremity, the album settles on the niche end of the already niche genre that is death metal. Not even death metallers like Origin!

I like it though, because of the lack of dynamics, both in production and songwriting - it is persistent and uncompromising. I know there was more unhinged music (inside or outside the metal sphere) before and after "Informis...", so it's not like the album is a peak of extremity, but it's still unmusical enough that you need to approach it from a different angle. It is true that any 20 second snippet tells you what you need to know, but on the other hand, not one single moment misrepresents the whole, unlike a weirdly catchy single, or an disconnected opener or closer track. Others call it monotony, I call it consistency. All throughout you'll be hearing tremolo heavy, often dissonant, riffs without any clear melody or rhythm to them, which appear formless under the relentless blastbeats and the shrieks and growls from the different vocalists. All of this is reinforced by a high gain, very midrangey and not quite hi-fi guitar tone, a snare sound with boosted low mids and a wall of sharp kick drum, where each individual hit still manages to cut through the mix and be heard.

"Informis..." has the immediate brutality if that's what you're looking for, but the music is complex enough to reward repeated listens with details such as modulation, transposition or John Legstrength's seamless incorporation of drum breaks into the blasts. You can find nuance in there, but hardly any moments which stick with you. I won't call any song memorable, because they really aren't. I enjoy only "Awaken the Suffering" and "Portal" as standalone compositions, but for this type of all-tension, no-release death metal, focusing on individual tracks doesn't get to the core of it. I find that back to back walls of sound, with only a few seconds of silence between them, are a meditative experience that couldn't be achieved if individual sections were more distinct from each other. Imagine pointless violence that is scary, because it is pointless.

I hear resemblance to Cryptopsy and Deeds of Flesh on Origin's self-titled, but I can't draw any obvious parallels to specific bands with "Informis...". Ironically, that's why it comes off as a little non-distinct - the album is recognizable as a member of its genre, but it's slightly unique for its time, so you can't immediately  place it in the "lineage" of an older band. This makes it sound more generic than it actually is, but the cluttered arrangements and production also contribute to that perception. There is a minimal songwriting pattern of extending one riff around the middle of a song and one early riff reappearing near the end. It's enough to say the riffs are connected into full compositions, but the lack of dynamics and slower tempos makes it not matter. The drumming style is what you'd hear on later Origin albums. For the guitarwork however, the sweeping leads and scale runs of later albums are absent here, in favor of chromatic tremolo based riffs, with dissonant chords thrown in every so often. A type of riff that could have been done by a lot of other bands, and it also lacks the frills to match the drumming. "Echoes of Decimation" would step up the complexity of guitar parts (while oddly dropping almost any notion of composition), and "Antithesis" would individualize each song's structure.