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Yob: The Unreal Never Lived Doom Metal, Stoner Metal Metal Blade Records September 5th, 2005
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Review
The fourth full length album from epic doom metal pioneers Yob, entitled The Unreal Never Lived, finds the band actually having progress since their last album. On this release, everything is just as heavy as the previous albums, but there are some key elements that were used that have now been removed, making this album a little more clearer then usual as well. While those familiar with Yob may look at the statement and automatically conclude that the band lost it's shine by doing that, they will be proven horribly wrong, as this release is yet another underrated and overlooked metal masterpiece. The album starts off with a loud boom, and no I'm not talking from the music kicking in, I mean a loud boom that becomes ambience for a while until a voice emerges to state "The unreal never lived..." before the music does chime in. From the moment of the sound of an explosion on "Quantum Mystic", you'll be engulfed in this band's unique style of writing. As soon as the music does kick in, it's clear that Yob have reduced the distortion on the guitars, but, thankfully, it doesn't take away from the overall heaviness and rather dark feeling the music presents on the album. It has also been removed from some of the vocals present on this album, primarily on the track "Quantum Mystic", giving off a more human quality to the music, which sounds nice compared to the very high, innocent, almost feminine sounding vocals presented on The Illusion Of Motion. Each of the songs have a rather similar song structure, but yet somehow come out to be rather varied due to the band's genius ability to write songs that are long, but just have so much going on in them without any need for filler material to extend the life of the song. The first three tracks on this release are very intense Stoner influenced Doom metal that will have you on edge (in a good way) the whole way through, but the final track, "The Mental Tyrant", is really where the album shines. The twenty one plus minute song has a very laid back feel to it right from the start, and as it progresses continues to build up to a louder, heavier monster before calming down to end the track in such a way that you will want to listen to this song again as soon as it finishes. The Unreal Never Lived is an intense musical trip that any fan of Doom Metal will be happy to have taken. The production on this release sounds better then any of the band's past releases, and the band has once again matured and created a solid Doom album that doesn't settle for cheap ambience or overly repetative riffs to drive the length time up on a song that really is two minutes worth of content total.
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