Artist - YOB
Album - The Unreal Never Lived
Label - Metal Blade
Reviewer - Jesse Lynch
When I think of a city of origin for something dark and heavy like doom metal, Eugene OR is not the first place that comes to mind. Neo-hippies and frat parties yes. Doom and gloom no (I mean it’s a college town and is quite beautiful during the summer, what with the clean blue skies, bountiful flora and bikini clad college girls. But I digress). So I must admit that when I received YOB’s sophomore effort for Metal Blade records, I was a bit skeptical. Then I put it in the CD player and lost myself for nearly an hour of detuned, riff droning goodness that is doom metal.
This disc has all the makings of a good doom record. The guitars are detuned so low the strings probably flap. While this can often make things sound muddy, they did a good job keeping the guitar clean enough to hear every riff. And speaking of riffs, they are here a plenty. Each of the four songs (Yes four. And the disc still runs almost an hour) has numerous riffs that often repeat and circle around each other in a dark dance that kind of pulls you into a musical trance. As with other bands of this genre, each riff repeats for a much longer period of time than standard metal but does so without being tedious. What it does do is create a tension that builds with each pass until it hits its peak and then moves on to the next section. You’ll find your head nodding in time with the music and realize that you’ve been doing it since the disc started.
Drums and bass provide excellent low end support, adding the extra little bits that give the song texture and build the tension. The vocals are interesting in that they seem to be there to highlight the music rather than the other way around. They are kept much farther back in the mix than most other bands and intertwine screaming, growling and even real singing to nice effect.
This is a good disc that I will listen to after the work part of listening is done. Especially good is the 21:23 closing track “The Mental Tyrant”, which starts off with a very melodic, almost pretty beginning and then takes you every direction it can after that. Most impressive, especially for its length, it keeps you interested the entire time. This disc may not be for everyone but if you are at all in the doom/stoner metal scene this disc is definitely for you.
