Ever-Expanding

"The down time between tours is a sad, lonely time, where I'm just waiting – the anticipation is palpable,” chuckles Keyser, a qualified but non-practicing anthropologist.

Previously a member of Skinless, Keyser left the group in 2010 to finish his university studies, and joined Origin only after Entity was released. “Like The Godfather, every time I think I'm out they pull me back in,” he says jovially in reference to death metal. “I appreciate it – I'm glad it does because the real world is not fun. It's not fun for anybody. I'm trying to avoid real life responsibilities for as long as possible.”

He even avoided his own graduation ceremony in 2013, choosing instead to perform with Origin, although he “walked across the stage in a little cap and gown with Origin, so it was kind of my own graduation”.

“It was hard work and I'm glad I did it, but I'm really lucky I managed to coordinate everything. Being an anthropologist now is not really… I didn't choose all that wisely. I should have been a stockbroker or something,” he laughs.

The forthcoming Omnipresent is his first official recording with the band. “We wrapped it up in January; it's on its way to Nuclear Blast now. I think it came out great. It's chewed a lot of the diversity that Origin's capable of that maybe they've neglected in the past for outright machine gun brutality. I'm really grateful to the dudes in Origin – they accepted me as their new frontman. They never treated me as the new guy or made me sit on the back seat. I was a full on member from day one.”

Conceptually Keyser comments that Omnipresent is “very loosely constructed”. “Most of it is about the burden of being a sentient population. The burden of having no choice but to expand. There's one line in the lyrics that I think sums it all up – “Expand or die, expand and die.” There's no choice – we're just growing well beyond our capacity. There's a loose theme of the album about expanding beyond earth, beyond everything, having to go out into the great unknown and just finding nothing, just being lost by our own devices, our own creativity ruining us. A lot of it is just about how much I hate people in general.”

With a little nudge the conversation turns to overpopulation and overconsumption. “My general feeling on the whole subject is that I don't have kids, and I really don't plan on having kids, and I feel like that's my greatest contribution to the world – not having kids. Not perpetuating this cycle that just keeps going, and not subjecting somebody against their will to exist, to exist in an agonising world, that hopefully will collapse sometime in the next couple of decades.”