Echoes of Decimation (2005) - Origin

Released in 2005 via Relapse Records, Echoes of Decimation is the third full-length album by Kansas tech-death giants Origin. Though often overlooked in discussions of the band's discography—wedged between the furious savagery of Informis Infinitas Inhumanitas and the acclaimed Antithesis—this record stands as one of the band’s most distilled and uncompromising statements. It's lean, mean, and absolutely feral.

Tracklist:

1. Reciprocal

2. Endless Cure

3. The Burner

4. Designed to Expire

5. Cloning the Stillborn

6. Staring from the Abyss

7. Amoeba

8. Debased Humanity

9. Echoes of Decimation

From the opening seconds of Reciprocal, you’re greeted with Origin’s trademark speed—almost machine-like in precision, yet deeply chaotic in its aggression. The album wastes no time, and it doesn’t give any either. At under 27 minutes, it’s a relentless burst of technicality, brutality, and concise songwriting—each track functioning like a high-velocity weapon fired in quick succession.

Paul Ryan’s guitar work is absolutely unhinged here. The sweep picking is omnipresent, forming alien textures that blur the line between riff and solo. This is not a record built on grooves or hooks—it’s a monument to precision and kinetic force. If you're not actively trying to dissect what's going on, it may pass in a blur of sonic violence. But those paying attention will find tight, structured madness behind the chaos.

James Lee’s vocals on Echoes of Decimation are arguably some of the most vicious in the band’s career. His range—from subterranean growls to distorted screams—cuts through the mix with unfiltered rage. The lyrics, steeped in themes of biological decay, existential horror, and post-human annihilation, mirror the music’s brutal science-fiction aesthetic.

John Longstreth’s drumming is a technical marvel. His blastbeats are jaw-droppingly fast, but what’s most impressive is his use of restraint and variation beneath all that speed. He doesn’t just go full-auto—he finds subtle rhythmic shifts that elevate the album’s more abstract moments, especially in tracks like Amoeba and Staring from the Abyss.

Standouts include The Burner, which lives up to its name with face-melting tempo and dizzying guitar flurries, and Cloning the Stillborn, a nightmarish maelstrom of dissonance and vocal torment that encapsulates the album’s nihilistic DNA. The title track, Echoes of Decimation, closes the record with a brief, eerie outro—a rare moment of reflection after the aural assault.

This album’s production is cold and clinical—perfectly suiting the mechanized, inhuman feel of the music. It lacks some of the low-end punch of later releases, but this serves to highlight the alien quality of the guitar work and hyper-blasted drums. In many ways, it feels like the purest representation of Origin’s mission: death metal stripped of all flesh, revealing a gleaming exoskeleton of terror underneath.

Echoes of Decimation may not have the grandiosity of Antithesis or the raw madness of Informis..., but it represents a unique midpoint: furious, focused, and unrepentantly technical. For fans of bands like Hate Eternal, Cryptopsy, and Spawn of Possession, this record remains one of tech-death’s most brutal and underrated gems.