Album of the day: Yob – Catharsis (Abstract Sounds 2003)

Us doomsters Yob, who recently reunited finished recording their new album, entitled The Great Cessation due out this summer via Profound Lore Records (Yob has posted  ‘Burning the Altar’ on their MySpace page, it’s the lead track on The Great Cessation).
As for the new material, mastermind Mike Scheidt had this to say about it: “The newest material is such a trip, I don’t know how exactly to describe it.  The final ‘epic’ song  is like a mix of the song ‘Catharsis’ and ‘The Unreal Never Lived…’ big clean guitar intro, big slow melodic riffs, patient big builds that explode… it`s going to be huge. It`s also going to be an immense challenge to keep this album in the 60-minute mark. Five songs total. Lots of clean singing. Still lots of screams and death roars too.”

This is what Roadburn Drew Webster had to say about Yob’s debut, Catharsis back in 2003: YOB are a band that combines equal amounts of space of power, songwriting and jam ability.

Stylistically they fall into a category of new school power doom, but with some old school metal thrown in and even a touch of psychedelia. Think  ‘Jerusalem’ meets a less grungy sounding ‘Come My Fanatics’ with an early Melvins gait to it

As for the vocals, lead singer Mike Sheidt sounds like Lori Crover channeling the voice of Stephen Pearcy (Ratt). If that vocal description sounds slightly frightening to you, rest assured that it is a cool voice  (if perhaps an acquired taste) and it is entirely refreshing to hear a vocalist that can actually sing. There are moments of guttural ‘cookie monster’ doom vox mixed in, and these work really well when contrasted with the higher pitched singing.

YOB’s greatest strength is their reverence for space and the way they parlay that into an unhurried songwriting style that is slow and deliberate, and (most importantly) has something to say. This is a group that builds their songs from the ground up. One chord appears, is repeated, is joined by another chord and another until slowly it builds into a riff which eventually evolves into a song.

The songs are then adorned and fleshed out with the contrasting vocal style and some mid- to uptempo parts. Each of the three very long tracks (7, 18 and 23 minutes) exhibits some of the constantly evolving progressions that characterize good psychedelic music as well.

Catharsis is a well-crafted, well recorded, great sounding record that place YOB as part of an emerging U.S. doom movement that includes Orodruin, The Lair of the Minotaur and The Mighty Nimbus as well as veterans like Penance, Negative Reaction and While Heaven Wept. This is a really solid debut record that demands your attention.”

Tags: album of the day, doom, mike scheidt, yob

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 12th, 2009 at 5:46 am and is filed under 2009, News, Roadburn Recommended . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.