YOB

Eugene, Oregon’s trio of doom-obsessed slow-motion fanatics are back, in what seems like a blink of an eye since their last opus, The Illusion of Motion (a more apt title never existed). Guess it’s been a year or so, but time seems to lose all relevance when one is dealing with discs like this that contain four songs in 52 minutes; listening to The Unreal Never Lived feels like taking a year off your life. And it’s awesome: heavy, bottom-end-worshipping doom metal, with emphasis on all things slow, bass-drenched and completely over the top. One of the more extreme bands in today’s doom scene, Yob still manage to incorporate a bit of melody into their songs, and also have a great production sound to boot. I miss the crazy high pitch vocals that made the last album so enjoyable, but this time around, the sub-Cookie Monster vox make up for it. There’s not much in the way of variety, of course; while the band may notice the differences between discs, the listener is hard-pressed to. This time around, there are a few minutes of slightly more up-tempo playing and a greater sense of humanity fuelling the destruction. Totally fucking brutal in every sense of the word, Yob make serious music for serious people. It doesn’t get much heavier than this.