I was very impressed with Mortillery's debut, Murder Death Kill, back in 2011 so when their latest, Origin of Extinction, dropped into my review queue I was psyched. The music is still no-holds-barred Thrash Metal but some of the rough edges have been smoothed over in favor of a more melodic approach to the songwriting. There's an almost Traditional Metal sound to some of the tracks. Singer Cara McCutchen is still the angry front woman but has dialed back her performance a hair. She also tries her hand at actual singing on the track "The Hunter's Lair", as opposed to the venomous shrieks she normally employs, and fails miserably. She is so out of tune on the chorus I had to start skipping the entire song. Fear not, the rest of her contributions are solid. Like the debut, the songs aren't overly unique, but on the debut there was a spark, a desperation, something in the band's delivery that grabbed the listener and that is missing on Origin of Extinction. It sounds like the band felt they HAD to write the songs instead of WANTING to write them. Origin of Extinction isn't a bad album but we did not get Mortillery's "A" game.