When the first interplanetary electric guitar was conceived, it must have been for a band like Psychotica. They played music that rode the line between the chaotic and the orchestral. Melodies that carried an indescribable intensity that could only be matched by a fetal alien thrusting its three pincered hands through its mother’s interstellar womb. Your ears would bleed, but you'd beg for more. It was the bittersweet symphony of our lives, but now, with the untimely departure of Patrick Briggs, it feels like the music got unplugged. In Psychotica’s formative years, when Pat Briggs and Tommy Salmorin knocked together their band in the grit-laced crucible of 1994, nobody - and I mean nobody - thought they'd go beyond shattering a few hundred eardrums in derelict basements. But, oh, how they exceeded expectations. With concerts that were more akin to Dante's 10th circle of Hell than a traditional rock concert, they held audiences captive with an arresting blend of industrial grunt, melodic resonance, and chaotic cynicism. Their inclusion in the 1996 Lollapalooza tour was as surprising as a vegetarian shark. Sharing the fearsome stage with titans like Soundgarden, the Ramones, and Metallica, they were like a disgruntled alien species hell-bent on usurping the thrones of the earthly rock kings. And usurp, they did. When they added guitarist Clint Walsh and released Espina in 1998, the world felt the tremors. They amplified their frenzied cacophony and wrapped it around the bones of ardent listeners worldwide like sinew on a fresh skeleton. But after the storm follows the calm, and Briggs moved to Los Angeles. The dynamic duo, Briggs and Kostabi, dissolved like sugar cubes in the acid rain of creative differences, and Psychotica silently slid into the back alley shadows of obscurity. Except they didn't. The beast stirred again in 2009, and a fourth album was whispered on the winds, threatening to unleash upon the world another dose of Psychotica's unique brand of raucous serenity. They found a partner in sin with Christian Menses and his aptly named, Toxic Shock Records. Alas, the curtains had to fall, and they did so with an abrupt, tragic finality. Patrick Briggs, the lightning rod of Psychotica's seething creativity, took his thunderous madness elsewhere. The news hit the fans like a headbutt from a drunk He-Goat. Briggs' eccentric and electric spirit had left the stage, and it seems that the stage lights are dimming, as a moment of silence stretches out into the unknown. It's a bittersweet symphony indeed, the story of Psychotica. A twisted eulogy to an unplugged legacy of chaos bound in melody. The echoing silence in their wake is a testament to the noise they once made. We mourn Patrick Briggs. We mourn a unique vibration in the cosmic noise of music. But above all, we mourn the untimely unplugging of an orchestra called Psychotica. Even as we dab our tear-drenched eyes, we cannot help but smile at the memory of the raucous lullabies they played. Bravo, Psychotica! Hail and farewell!