I can’t have been the only one surprised at Origin’s move from Relapse to Nuclear Blast, as fitting as that name is for their style of brutal technicality – are aural atomic assaults such as The Aftermath really popular enough to warrant such a raised profile? In any case, I was expecting another ceaseless surge of fury, and was surprised to hear that Origin have actually toned it down a little. Not because they are aiming at mainstream dominance, but because they are ever-maturing as songwriters, and know that sometimes, less is more. This makes Entity a more interesting album than its predecessor in some ways, not least because drummer John Longstreth plays with a less overall dense battery, meaning that you can actually focus on the music. For the first time ever, you don’t need to lie down after hearing an Origin album all the way through!

Of course, Origin being Origin, you’re still going to get your head kicked in more often than not, and the likes of opening blast Expulsion Of Fury do their best to destroy the listener. The various guitar licks and twists are beyond my meagre vocabulary to describe, but I can tell you that when the band pause for a breakdown or throw in a bit of lead guitar, it’s at the optimal point that will cause the most headbanging. Massively varied song lengths, from sub-two-minute grinding torrents to seven-minute epics, see the band clearly pushing at their boundaries and examining exactly what happens when riff A goes with drumroll B. Saliga, a six-minute epic tour-de-force, is especially impressive, managing to drive the music along powerfully without once growing uninteresting or uncertain of itself, psychedelically spacing out without using keyboards at all.

As far as tech-death goes, this is a rich, varied album. The likes of Purgatory are crammed full of ominous heaviness, spasmodic shifts in Conceiving Death more rounded and impressive than those on the last Cephalic Carnage. This is death metal as honed, sharpened axe, swing convincingly and heavily, with both the cutting-edge technicality and weight of the metal behind it causing the damage it does. Take the sub-two-minute Committed as a good example, guitars moving between quickly high-pitched squalls and low, ferocious grinding, intermittent blasts adding to the carefully planned chaos. It showcases the band’s many skills perfectly, and serves as an excellent piece of metal in its own right. And there’s not much more you can ask for from tech-death, although the furious and much purer grind of Banishing Illusion is a potent reminder that it’s still fun to get your arse kicked by a good bit of extreme metal.

Ultimately, Origin albums tend to match their cover art – Antithesis was a giant space monster, epic in brutality and furious in unrelenting sound, and Entity’s dark voyage is summed up well by that image of a huge dead ball of rock. There are moments on here that are relatively melodeath in style compared to what Origin can be like. Of course, please, please don’t start accusing me of talking rubbish when you listen to Entity and it kicks you from here to Saturn! Origin is still one of the heaviest shows in town, yet on this outing you’re allowed to enjoy the aural beating rather than just sit through it. Good for them; Entity lacks the sheer intensity of its predecessor, but makes up for it in other ways.