Yob
The Unreal Never Lived

"I am compelled to speak because the men of science have decided to ignore my warnings without delving into the reasons." _{(Howard Phillips Lovecraft, "At the Mountains of Madness")}

An explosion. Then metallic noises, the heavy air, the increasingly oppressive wait. The whisper of an invocation, and the gods begin their fearful dance. "Teacher Of Endless Grace Was Born In India" will be the first words in "Quantum Mystic", but alas they will come late. By then, you will already be in the vortex of creation from the primary Chaos, witness to a rite outside known time, in a cold and horrific universe where everything is in constant motion and yet seems so damn static. You will bend upon yourself crushed by the circular riffs of a pachydermic guitar, and Mike Scheidt's shredded voice will finish tearing you apart surgically.

Yes, it is above all a mental journey, even before an exhausting physical ordeal, that the listener undertakes with the listening of The Unreal Never Lived, the fourth work from the American doomsters Yob, released under Metal Blade in September 2005 just a year after the more spiritual The Illusion Of Motion. Those already familiar with the band's previous works will not struggle to recognize in this the necessary and epic closure of a cycle. The first three tracks average ten minutes each ("Quantum Mystic", "Grasping Air", and "Kosmos"), and the fourth and last ("The Mental Tyrant"), over twenty.

Such monoliths cannot be analyzed individually; Yob's compositions always evoke the terrible advance of a horde of psychotic elephants; thus, in this work, if the acid/stoner coordinates are all present and still well-defined, it is from these that the group moves towards a noticeable heaviness of sound that now strips every kind of digression to a minimum. Here, you truly cannot breathe anymore, because Yob reaches a level of rarefaction that cannot be pushed beyond. The least daring mental association might be precisely with the "mountains of madness" of Lovecraftian lineage, aided by an enigmatic cover. But also, perhaps the group sensed more or less unconsciously that "The Unreal Never Lived" would be the last effort. That's why the choice of white, which in India is associated with death, and this to the momentary end of a cycle.

Yob, in fact, will be reborn; the release of the new work is expected by July 2009. Good luck, even though we will once again be the ones being devoured... Arghhhh!!!