Congratulations Ma’am, it’s a Yob (live review)!
Yob and friends keep the brown note alive in Seattle. PNW bangers unite!
Hello fellow TOH, twatting deathloathers! I am crazytaco_12, here to review Yob’s show from August 9th in Seattle. This was a one-off show so if you’re looking to see Yob yourself, please check out their facebook page or other affiliated websites. Also, I’m sorry I didn’t get any pictures; I’m just not a lameass who likes to spend an entire show with a camera in front of his face. On to the review!
First up to start the show was a local band called Transient. They blasted their way through a pummeling set that was surprisingly distinguishable considering their frenetic grindcore sound and the notoriously iffy sound quality of El Corazon. If you’re not familiar with this band, you may recognize the singer from the more successful death metal band, Landmine Marathon. Anyhow, this act was clearly out of left field for the bill, in a good way. The collective audience anticipation for da slow clearly grew after hearing this band‘s vitriolic speed. This is one of the few relatively unknown bands I’ve seen where people rushed their merch table as soon as they were done. Check out their Bandcamp.
Next up were local doom/stoner metal stalwarts, Wounded Giant (Bandcamp page here). This band is in, what I would consider, the upper tier of Seattle’s doom/stoner/sludge scene. Due to this fact, I was surprised when I noticed that most of the crowd seemed to be hanging at the bar when they came on stage. Undaunted, W.G. proceeded to blow the roof off of El Corazon. Only about half a song into their set, the bar dwellers got back in the pen and drank up the sonic wash the trio poured down from the stage. Drummer, Alex Bytnar, deserves some serious props for playing with such energetic finesse; it was clear his contribution affected the overall output from the audience. Overall, Wounded Giant played some catchy, well-written tunes and put on a great show, what more could you want?
Before they were set to play, I saw all of the members of Yob just hanging around; Aaron Rieseberg was ‘banging to both of the locals and Mike Scheidt was buying up band merch. Now up on stage, Mike projected his warm soul towards the audience and gave all in attendance a heartfelt thanks before ripping into “Quantum Mystic”, which had me yelling along ‘An ancient blah, blah was born in India!” (nowhere near close to the real lyrics, by the way) . “The Lie That is Sin” was next up in line and provided a nice, ethereal dynamic to the mountain-melter we had received as the opener. Yob then performed a new song entitled “Unmask the Spectre” (which you may have heard is available to stream Via Stereogum). Though the verse is sort of sleepy to me, this song drips in such a cool, rugged melancholy that it seemed to catch on with just about everyone. I couldn‘t totally focus on this song though for the fact that some meathead douche had to fight his way up front. Either way, from what I could focus on, this song had me incredibly excited for their fall release.
After Mike surveyed the audience to see if we wanted a “slower or faster one” (an omnipresent “SSSLLLOOOOWWWW” bellowed from the crowd), they broke out into “The Silence of Heaven”, which I consider to be the proverbial shit on the birthday cake out of their entire recorded output. After what felt like an hour of waiting for the song to end, Yob gave this show a shot in the arm by busting out the song of the night, “Burning the Altar”, which received the best crowd reaction by far. Everything about this song kicks ass: weird, gnarly chords, slow as fuck tempo for maximum neck damage, and some awesome psychedelic layering. Travis Foster was beating the living shit out of his drum set while still maintaining a feverishly slow tempo. Seriously, it looked like this dude was playing in slow motion with two elephant dicks as opposed to drumsticks.
Yob closed out their set with a song neither my girlfriend nor I could pinpoint, though Mike said it was one we would recognize (our best guess was “Grasping Air”). It was still a great song to end the night on and I felt fully satiated with their set. After the show, Mike was out giving hugs and handshakes and is easily one of the nicest, genuinely kind spirits the metal world has to offer. Thanks for making the few hour trip worth it Yob!
P.S: If you for some reason can’t buy one of their CD’s, here’s Yob’s Bandcamp
(Photo Via)
