In 2001, Oregon’s YOB knocked us all on our collective keysters with “Elaborations of Carbon”. The striking use of lights and darks, the schizophrenic vocal talents of Mike Scheidt, and their notable impersonation of ELECTRIC WIZARD playing MELVINS covers during a power plant meltdown made resistance their sonic tractor beam rather pointless.

Over the next couple of albums, 2002’s “Catharsis”, and 2004’s “The Illusion of Motion”, YOB buffed their pachyderm army march and layered their production without backing off the ultimate goal of maximum cranium rattle. We spawned a new phrase to describe the experience, that YOB had “doomed us numb” many times after repeat listens. Cryptic as that may sound, it seemed to say it all.

It would appear that YOB are still not satisfied, as the latest disc finds them hard-panning guitars, orchestrating subtle mood shifts, and sonically creating epics within epics. Scheidt’s vocals bounce from Mustaine- scowls to subsonic Dorrian grumbles as usual, but on this outing, he coaxes a wider array of vocal tones between the two extremes. Even bass player Isamu gets a shot at the mike this time, lending some low-end roars to delightfully spastic pulses of “The Mental Tyrant”. It may take a few listens to be able to appreciate how close YOB are to stealing the epic/ambient/crush crown from the likes of NEUROSIS or ISIS, but eventually it shines through (especially because YOB never makes the listener endure four minutes of silence in anticipation of the next riff). Plus, the bass-heavy, dam-rupturing waves of stop/start metal in track one, “Quantum Mystic” up their ante once again for best opener to date. You’ll doom yourself numb by the third listen, guaranteed. .

- Marchman

OFFICIAL SITE: myspace.com/yobdoom

MP3 SOUND SCRAP: Kosmos

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