Hey there tech fiends, it's that time of the week again. Before we dive into today's focus, here's the usual weekly reminder that if you're looking for even more sick bands, all prior editions of this series can be perused here.
Today we’re going to focus on Orgone who was a Philadelphia-based group far ahead of their time that was active from 2006 – 2014. If you’ve never heard Orgone, they’re not easy to explain, but, I think people who like Pyrrhon, Baring Teeth, Psyopus, Gorguts, Origin, Gigan, Cephalic Carnage, and The Red Chord will really dig this band.
Orgone’s three releases as a group are just as crushing and baffling now as they were many years ago well before any concrete semblance of an unorthodox tech-death sphere emerged. I’d argue there’s more of an interest in this kind of sound now than there was in the years Orgone was active. The group’s songs often run a lot longer than most tech-death bands and aren’t structured in a way tech-death fans are accustomed to hearing.
The band captured my attention quickly with their initial 2006 three-song EP, The Accumulator, and quick follow up a year later with a more developed sound on their 2007 full-length album, The Goliath. Each of these two efforts offer up an endless onslaught of extreme tornado-like technical death metal delivered in angular and unorthodox forms and drawing from far more than just death metal. The Accumulator kicks off with two short frenetic and pissed off cuts with goofy titles before the third song, “Accumulator” showed what Orgone was really capable of doing as a band in an over nine minutes long ravenous and strange mindfuck that sprawls in numerous directions yet never wanders aimlessly.
The Goliath was another step up by a group I was already highly impressed by. At 6 songs and 33 minutes, The Goliath is one of the most intense and unhinged releases of darker technical death metal I’ve ever heard. This is Cryptopsy and Origin levels of insane but presented in a far more off-the-wall and freakier way. The creepy and bizarre artwork is a dead ringer for how out there and wild the music itself is and cements their aesthetic as outsiders in a way.
Which brings us to the band’s second album, The Joyless Parson. Originally written and recorded in 2008, the album saw the band continuing to build up their knotty and unorthodox yet frenetic take on tech-death. This was their only release with vocalist Geoff Fico who played on from The Faceless – Autotheism and live for that group for a while. As good as The Goliath is, The Joyless Parson sees Orgone continuing to branch out sound wise and going for a bleaker and more emotive tone when they're not being outright savage.
Beyond the incredibly dense maze-like compositions and impressive controlled chaos guiding The Joyless Parson’s songs, the groups experimental, and overtly proggier led ideas were given more space in the music on this release which I really enjoy. Like their prior releases, the group centers their releases around elaborate fairly long songs clustered with shorter songs. Three songs over ten minutes each form the core runtime of The Joyless Parson. While the shorter songs alternate from calming to chaotic and compact. There’s a great emphasis on planet-smashing heaviness and mid-paced sludgy death terrain to the material here not as present before that I fucking love.
Unfortunately, due to some setbacks, The Joyless Parson didn’t see an official release until 2014 though it was spread around online in pre-production form in 2011. As a testament to their fervent fans, myself included when it dropped, the release still got solid coverage at the time of release. It would seem the project may have another release coming although it’s been a couple of years so I don’t know. But, their three releases as a group are very unique and I urge you to check out all three of them out embedded from Bandcamp which are Name-Your-Price. In the chance Orgone does come back, later on, you can follow them on the Orgone Facebook Page.
