YOB (The Illusion Of Motion) CD
Hailing from Portland, YOB have developed a unique style of doom that is extremely conducive to mind expansion. If you think the band create just a wall of boring rehashed Vitus riffs you're wrong. Of course, there are still hints of influences, such as Electric Wizard and mid-90's Sleep, but especially here on the newest and third album, this group have left this comparisons mostly behind. In opposite to the two previuos albums, guitarist and vocalist Mike S. comes up with more dissonant chording, as in the furious psychotic opener "Ball of Molten Lead", where one can find some tribal patterns combined with heaviest riffs and metallic guitar solos. This piece is about 10+ minutes longs, but the group have charged it with so much impressive ideas that it's not possible to describe it here. "Exorcism of The Host" is an nightmarish mean voyage, introduced by a funeral bell and a deep growl, followed by weighty monolithic riffs which hooks your mind with it's simple enticing rhythmic barrage. After eight minutes a very emotional guitar solo calms down this monster, just to explode into a hard-groovin' mid-tempo part which ends into the beginning. Then follows "DOOM II", but don't expect a slow creeping long winding track. This is the shortest cut here (6:09 min.), and this beast is hard to pigeonhole, but guaranteed to blow your preconceptions and damage your mind.
Now it's time to lose some words about Mike's unorthodox singing. His somehow lyseric mysterious sounding vocals, especially when he uses a clean style, are making YOB to something outstanding. While a lot of other singers in this genre are trying to imitate the well-known ones, he has his own brain-cell shuddering sort of singing. And when he uses distorted death growls in contrast to the lysergic ones, the overall atmosphere of YOB's monstrous interstellar doom anthems get simply richer. At least, the album closes with the unfriendly title track, and once again the group proves their ability to create long running songs (here it's 26+ minutes!) that are still entertaining and don't end in frustrating boredom. In the first twenty minutes of this epic piece YOB are exploring darkest Burning Witch territory and they leave their own impressive trace there. Once again Mike's unique and diverse vocals are adding the extra special vibe here. Suddenly, the track breaks into a more up-tempo beat with a few dissonant guitar tones incorporated that could remind the listener to later Neurosis. What for an intense maelstrom! Now, where YOB have singend with Metal Blade Records, I really hope more people will discover this outstanding band, who shows that it's still possible to play doom metal without ripping off the complete back catalogue from Saint Vitus over Trouble to Pentagram. Buy this and watch your life start to crumble around you!
(KK)