Origin & Hate Eternal at 270 BPM
Origin @ 270 BPM
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Origin and Hate Eternal are teaming up for the cargo pants death metal tour of the year. (See dates below.) I’m so excited, I might even buy cargo pants for the occasion. Now, “cargo pants death metal” isn’t derogatory. Yes, it does imply some conformity: the multi-pocketed warriors who come through week after week, hauling Engl amps and hordes of fans deeply concerned about beats per minute. These bands windmill their hair with frightening synchronicity and play expensive instruments. They are death metal as process, as perfection, as industry.
But I’ll take cargo pants metal over stovepipe jeans metal any day. Harder, better, faster, stronger: that’s how you make fans in real life, not on the Internet. When I first saw Pete Sandoval play in Morbid Angel, he seemed not to be drumming so much as setting off explosive charges. Then when I saw Derek Roddy play in Hate Eternal, he seemed like an entire artillery battalion. Then when I saw John Longstreth play with Origin, my heart basically stopped. Time felt like it was moving both slowly and quickly. No album has ever given me that feeling.
Origin and Hate Eternal recently released making-of videos for upcoming albums. Both follow the same trajectory. A brief introduction leads to the display of some manly wound in the service of metal (a drumstick for Origin, a finger for Hate Eternal), then a display of musical athleticism. Longstreth erupts into a blastbeat fusillade that still drops my jaw even after the millions of blastbeats I’ve witnessed. My BPM counter says 260, 270. Paul Ryan’s guitar tone is ripping. So is Hate Eternal guitarist Erik Rutan’s. He’s good at fast position shifts. We don’t see Hate Eternal drummer Jade Simonetto play, but we see the aftermath: an ice pack on his ankle. “That’s what fucking 270 does to you”, Rutan says.
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Hate Eternal @ 270 BPM
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Hate Eternal’s Phoenix Amongst the Ashes comes out May 10. (Order it and hear a song from it here.) On first listen, it sounds like if Voivod took a truckload of steroids and declared war on everyone. It might be a return to the form of I, Monarch, one of my all-time favorite metal records. As Rutan would say, “It’s wakey, wakey time!” A YouTube commenter thought that an Erik Rutan alarm clock would be a good idea. How about an Erik Rutan-voiced GPS unit? Every direction announced in a death growl: TURN RIGHT…OR DIE…
Origin’s Entity comes out June 7 in North America and June 10 in Europe. I haven’t heard it yet, but I’ll be first in line (Internet yet legal) for it. And hell yes am I going to the Cargo Pants: North American Devastation Tour. If I die because I didn’t turn right, drag my corpse to the show.
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CARGO PANTS: NORTH AMERICAN DEVASTATION TOUR
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