Clearing the Path to Ascend

Chronique

Between 2002's Elaborations of Carbon and 2011's Atma, stoner/doom metal outfit YOB released six albums -- despite a two-year hiatus. While sonic and production changes occurred during that time, they served to reinforce the band's core sound. Clearing the Path to Ascend, YOB's Neurot debut, doesn't so much abandon that sound as expand it -- exponentially in places. Over four long tracks, Yob present a more intricate, diverse, texturally complex offering than ever before.
Opener "In Our Blood" commences with the late philosopher Alan Watts gently intoning "time to wake up" above a solitary, phase-shifted electric guitar playing a moody chord progression. 90 seconds in, the trio enters, churning through a detuned chordal vamp amid thudding tom-toms and a filthy, droning bassline. When Mike Scheidt begins moaning, it sounds like Ozzy-era Black Sabbath jamming with Alice in Chains in an angry, doom-laden paean to the evolution of the inner spirit: "Deep inside/The dark clamored in us/Ever near/Revealed and seen without fear/Shed the skin/Expose the heart in twilight...." Sonics shift toward menacing ambience as single strummed chords frame controlled distortion and feedback and Watts asks, "What is reality?" and answers himself in the subdued dreamscape before a crushing doom riff erupts at 12:14, underscoring double-tracked, guttural choral roars from Scheidt ascending into chaos before fading. "Nothing to Win" careens with blasting tom-toms and snares, machine-gun guitars and bass riffing. Scheidt venomously roars into the existential fun house mirror: "A dying kiss/Fury let loose/Straight into a noose ... Clutching trusted lies/Feeling sick inside/It's time to end/The story." The sludgy attack increases tempo and almost derails, but manages to shamble back before plodding, lurching, and churning to the finish line. "Unmask the Spectre" opens the album's second half, and this is where revelation emerges. Its intro is almost Gothic as cello sounds and angular, shard-like guitar lines frame Scheidt's whispered vocal. At two minutes, the band erupts volcanically and he starts screaming, invoking ancient Buddhist wisdom reflecting the ego's violent yet delusional struggle to preserve itself as a separate entity. Scheidt calls on the elements to aid him in the struggle for transformation as the band creates a maelstrom of jagged, sludgy doom. Set-closer "Marrow" is suite-like at 19 minutes long. Scheidt's varied singing voice reflects wistful longing here, an aural salve for the wringer he's put listeners through until now; struggle is ever present in his searching lyrics, and he offers more relief than hope. With melodic, meditative guitar and basslines, YOB offer fragmentary solos as bridges to insanely heavy segments bursting with bone-shattering riffs. On Clearing the Path to Ascend, YOB no longer rely on simply overpowering listeners, but instead develop dramatic song structures whose textures, musicality, and dynamic force reflect the poetry and emotion in their lyrics. YOB have released heavier albums, but none offer the balance of the epic, spiritual, romantic, and tragic like this does.

© Thom Jurek /TiVo