YOB -

YOB - THE UNREAL NEVER LIVED - METAL BLADE
Stoned-out doom masters Yob return for another go at the down-tuned, the tortured, the long-winded (no track under 9 minutes and closer "The Mental Tyrant" clocking in at 21:23) and the darkly emblematic. Not much has really changed in the Yob camp on The Unreal Never Lived, though one can say that maturity is evident in a subgenre that, really, kind of all ebbs and fades into one colossal pound of (doomy) flesh. So, really, there's lots o' anxiety-riddled torture chasms to be had if you choose to venture into this record, with both the sacred and the profane equally appraised and spit at. What's got to be commended above and beyond the rest of The Unreal Never Lived's content are the first six and a half minutes of the aforementioned "The Mental Tyrant": oh man, oh man... you don't just find that kind of genuine and earnest melancholy every day. Seriously, said passage is one of the saddest, most real and non-betraying pieces of music we'll hear all year. Yob's done good, y'know? - James Tape