YOB

Doom metal, one of the most durable and consistent subgenres, rarely has bona fide champions anymore like ’90s-era Cathedral and Paradise Lost, but Oregon’s Yob have tackled this problem to come up on top. Much like last year’s Catharsis, The Illusion of Motion even more definitively charts the band’s course through the murkiest realms of malevolence, this time with heavier hooks. Opener "Ball Of Molten Lead” mixes the lava-like chordage of Acid King with the unrelenting tribalism of Neurosis, while giving guitarist Mike Schmidt ample time to solo like Duane Allman’s bastard son. As the bell tolls, "Exorcist Of The Host” spews forth Schmidt’s otherworldly death growls over the sandbagging riffs, as if Reverend Bizarre were forcing apart continental plates. The shortest track on record at six minutes, "Doom #2” (interestingly titled "Pain Like Sugar” if played on a computer) is also the fastest: club-footed, Keelhaul-ed hardcore along the lines of Hawg Jaw, with plenty of room for drummer Travis Foster to stretch out with his metallic fills and cymbal abuse. Like a lost Sleep epic, the 26-minute title track remains buoyant upon Isamu Sato’s resonant bass, and the song’s ebb and flow are so frequent that time and space slip into a gravitic anomaly with Pelican and 5ive. Schmidt and company have outdone themselves on The Illusion of Motion, and despite the album title, Yob will finally gain loads of well-deserved momentum to make them the most talked-about doom band since Sleep.