Hailing from the Pacific Northwest, Yob has been slogging it
out for a few years, managing two releases before signing,
somewhat surprisingly, to
Metal Blade
Records, who released
their third album, The Illusion Of Motion, in late 2004,
followed rather suddenly by The Unreal Never Lived in 2005.
The album reviewed here,
Catharsis, is three long tracks (totalling 50 minutes) of drawn-out,
semi-ambient stoner doom, most reminiscient of later-period
Sleep,
with rather unique vocals from guitarist/leader Mike Scheidt
(likened to some as sounding like early Geddy Lee, of all people).
The band rarely approaches anything up-tempo
("Ether" is the "fastest" of the three tracks here), and occasionally
things drag just a bit, but actually Yob is pretty adept at crafting
mesmerizing songs that drift by, heavy but not oppressive, and
while their basic premise seems simple, they mix it up just enough
to hold the listener's interest.
Following the departure of the rhythm section in the summer of 2005,
founder Scheidt decided to put the band to rest in early 2006,
forming a similar band called
Middian.
However, legal problems with that band's name forced Scheidt to abandon
that project, and so he reformed Yob, enlisting his longtime
drummer Travis Foster and a new bass player in Aaron Reiseberg.
