YOB

"Slow is fast," says Mike Scheidt, singer, guitarist, & creative nucleus of the Oregon-based doom metal trio YOB. It's a concept that speaks to both the immense propulsion of their megalithic compositions & the way their artistry has patiently unfurled across their 25-year tenure. YOB's music spreads across a plain where vast weather systems converge. Since sharing their first demo in 2000, the band has slowly, graciously gathered a devoted audience into their planetary orbit. Together with bassist Aaron Rieseberg & drummer Dave French, Scheidt tethers pendulous riffs to sky-flung vocals, sinking deep into the trenches & then cresting through the clouds. From the stoner rock ripples of their 2002 debut Elaborations of Carbon through the cavernous echoes of 2018's Our Raw Heart, YOB wield their totalizing gravity to bore into the light that hides in everything. YOB point toward spiritual queries with the reminder that it's the asking, not the answering, that drives you deepest. With its constant searching & searing heft, YOB's music sings across the nerves & yanks the mind back into the moment. It wrestles you to the ground so you can bask in the light of the sky. Anyone who's gone to a YOB show knows the distinct quality of attention the band commands. To see them live is to surrender completely, awash in pulverizing sound. The sheer mass of the music dislodges consciousness from its habitual patterns; dissolve into YOB and you'll find yourself rewritten upon surfacing.