Conor Fynes
'Atma' - Yob (6/10)
Doom metal. A genre dominated by crushing guitars, plodding rhythms, and a foreboding atmosphere. Such terms could begin to describe the sort of music that Yob make, a band based in Portland, Oregon. With their 2011 album 'Atma', Yob's doomy style of stoner metal is sure to please adherents of the genre, although there is not much more to the music here than is advertised. For epic, grimy doom metal rooted in the 1970's tradition, look no further.
Upon first listen to 'Atma', the closest thing I could compare Yob to would be a rawer Black Sabbath, fused with Mastodon, providing they were too busy refilling the bong water to focus on their more technical aspects. 'Atma' is a dirty-sounding, sludgy album, and filled up with throwback riffs from the time when metal was still getting up on its own two feet. The vocals start off sounding much like Ozzy Osbourne's, or even a vocalist from Mastodon; nasal and moody. As the album goes on though, Scott Kelly from the legendary post-metal act Neurosis comes in to make an appearance on two of the tracks, and his parts seem directly catered to him and the sort of music that Neurosis makes. Think the long, brooding sections of mellowness in 'The Eye Of Every Storm' and this will account for an elements of the music that Yob makes here. Barring that, Yob's heavier gears switch them into something of a retro-doom act; heavy as all hell, but fairly simplistic in its sound. This formula can be very fun and enjoyable at times, but the effect starts to wear off when the sound is drawn out much longer than feels appropriate. It is granted that a tenant of doom metal is to make drawn out compositions, but here, a little more variety or build-up in the way these songs develop would have done so much to make 'Atma' a grander experience.
'Adrift In The Ocean' is the greatest piece on the album, closing the album with more dynamic and dramatic tension than anything else on the album combined. Scott Kelly makes another cameo here, and while I don't care much for his vocals, they are used very well in the context of this style. Surely, Yob is not a band that fits into my tastes all that much; I find them a little uneventful, although the music can be very fun. There are great riffs here, and it is quite a good album, but there's not enough on 'Atma' to keep me coming back months from now.