Music / Origami Angel

I started bettering me 'cause I wanted to be like you!

I'm just saying hey there, do you remember me
Or the inside joke that I just referenced?
Do you still care?

— "Hey There", Quiet Hours

Origami Angel is a American alternative rock / emo band from Washington DC. Starting in 2017, the duo consists of Ryland Heagy as the guitarist, bassist, and singer, and Pat Doherty as the drummer.

Despite the generally silly song titles (such as "Space Flex T-Skrrt" or "Tom Holland Oates"), Origami Angel's music hits on relatable topics such as childhood nostalgia, making the best out of a bad situation, and standing up for yourself. They have released two original albums and a mixtape.

Discography:

• Quiet Hours (2017 EP)
• Doing the Most (2018 EP)
• Holy Split (2019 collab EP)
• Gen 3 (2019 EP)
• Somewhere City (2019 album)
• Origami Angel Broke Minecraft (2020 remix album)
• GAMI GANG (2021 album)
• re: turn (2022 EP)
• DEPART (2022 EP)
• The Brightest Days (2023 mixtape)

Tropes:

• Album Title Drop: The first and last tracks on The Brightest Days include the lines "even on the brightest days, I can't see where you've been!"
• all lowercase letters: The captions for Quiet Hours, Doing the Most, and Gen 3 are written in all lowercase and mostly without punctuation (barring some caps for emphasis). The track titles for re: turn use this as a theme.
• Boastful Rap: "XD Gale of Darkness" from Gen 3, notable for being the only Origami Angel song to be an outright rap.
  You already know I'm the top top of the top notch, never got got;
  Playin' with these kids like it's hop scotch
  Making everything around me so cold!
• Book Ends: The same two lines begin and end The Brightest Days:
  Where are you, my sunny feeling I knew as a kid?
  Even on the brightest days, I can't see where you've been
• BSoD Song: The Album Closure track on The Brightest Days, "Few and Far Between", is about the singer's unsuccessful attempt to recapture the magic he found in summer when he was a kid. He realizes that the climate of the world has changed way too much for it to be feasible. Notably, while the album's Arc Words are said in a hopeful tone in the first song, by "Few and Far Between", it's much more defeated and sad.
• Concept Album: The Brightest Days is "told through the lens of a shitty east coast summer." The mixtape is reflective on bad memories and the ways the world has changed.
• Downer Ending: At the end of The Brightest Days, Ryland's attempts to have fun in summer have ended badly and make him realize there's very few things to actually look forward to with it.
• Easter Egg: The official lyrics for "w / u" on Bandcamp end with "uwu whats this", which isn't actually spoken in the song.
• Growing Up Sucks: The Brightest Days starts with the protagonist trying to find the magic in summer that he experienced as a kid. By the end of it, he's realized that Nothing Is the Same Anymore and is disillusioned by how much the world has changed for the worse since then.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: The tracks on Gen 3 are named after the Pokemon games that make up that generation: "Ruby", "Sapphire", "Emerald", and "XD Gale of Darkness".
• Ironic Episode Title: "Thank You, New Jersey", which was made to communicate that Ryland doesn't actually like New Jersey at all.
• Location Song: "Thank You, New Jersey" is dedicated to New Jersey. While the song can seem affectionate at first glance, it's actually dripping with sarcasm and applying California surf cliches to a place that has nothing to do with them.
• Longest Song Goes Last: "Few and Far Between" closes out The Brightest Days at a length of 4:22.
• Meaningful Echo: The Brightest Days opens with the line, "Where are you, my sunny feeling I knew as a kid? Even on the brightest days, I can't see where you've been!", and the rest of the Album Intro Track is about how he wants to prove that he really can make the summer meaningful and is determined to enjoy it just like he did back then. This line closes out the mixtape, but as a sad resignation of defeat, since his summer vacation ended up being terrible.
• Production Foreshadowing: Origami Angel Broke Minecraft includes "Greenbelt Station" as its only track that isn't a remix. This song was later released (although slightly different) on GAMI GANG.
• Remix Album: Origami Angel Broke Minecraft includes calmer, slower remixes of previous songs, which then segue into something different: such as a chiptune track inspired by Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, or part of the Minecraft soundtrack.
  • "Witchu" is "w / u" from Doing the Most.
  • "Roo B" is "Ruby" from Gen 3.
  • "24 Hr Delivery" is "24-Hr Drive Thru" from Somewhere City.
  • "Rom Com Hacky Sack / Space Flex T-Skrrt" combines "ROM Hack" from Doing the Most and "SpaceX T-Shirt" from Quiet Hours.
  • "Greenbelt Station" is an original track. Interestingly, another version of this song was released on GAMI GANG, which came out a year later.
  • A standalone charity single, "Jazzy Whomst", is a calmer, instrumental version of "Doctor Whomst" from Somewhere City.
• Shout-Out: The cover art of Gen 3 is designed to resemble the Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire box art, with Origami Angel's logo in place of the box legendary.
• Title Drop: Two in "Few and Far Between", the last track of The Brightest Days:
  'Cause it's been raining the whole summer
  The brightest days are few and far between