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YOB

YOB with ENSLAVED AND ECSTATIC VISION at the Opera House (735 Queen East), Thursday (March 19), 7 pm. $23.50. ticketfly.com


It’s doom metal’s time in the sun. Or maybe under the moon or whatever. We’re talking about dark and foreboding music, after all.

Electric Wizard’s April 5 show at Lee’s Palace sold out almost before it was announced (see the long thread of comments on the FB event page demanding a second date). Pentagram are headlining NXNE.

And Rolling Stone named YOB‘s seventh album, Clearing The Path To Ascend (Neurot), the best metal album of 2014 (and 50th best album overall). Bit of a shocker for a band that’s been underground since its inception in 1996 and whose songs are 15 to 20 minutes long.

“We were surprised, for sure. We’ve never really existed in that world,” says founder/singer/guitarist Mike Scheidt as YOB’s tour van hurtles toward San Diego. “It’s only been in the last three or four years that doom metal has been on the radar for a lot of people.”

Asked what he attributes the shift to, he recalls listening to metal in the early 80s when Judas Priest, the Scorpions, Iron Maiden and AC/DC were huge.

“Then you started seeing a rise in thrash metal. Then death metal in the late 80s and early 90s. Then black metal. Then there were a lot of grindcore bands. Doom has been a part of every single one of those movements, and now it’s having its day.”

The critical praise is justified. Clearing A Path To Ascend astounds with its dynamic range, shifting from snail’s-pace titanic riffage to hard-hitting loudness to wide-lens acoustic beauty. It’s woven with arcane lyrics drawn from Scheidt’s interest in Eastern mysticism, oddly common to a lot of dark-minded musicians.

“There is something about the darkness of heavy music and the vibration around it that seems to conjure up otherworldly philosophies or non-ordinary reality in listeners,” Scheidt muses. “It can really teleport you out of your normal experience. And that’s not just true of metal, but music in general.”

Prior to the album’s making, Scheidt pressed pause on YOB – which he also did in 2006 when he (temporarily) ended the band – to make a 2013 record with metal supergroup VHÖL that incorporates black metal, traditional heavy metal, punk and more into its sound. 

He also made a solo acoustic record, Stay Awake, in 2012.

“With that one I did feel like I was processing something, and big and loud wasn’t going to do it. Doing solo music is personal and kind of nerve-racking to put out into the world.

“A song like [Clearing A Path’s] Marrow definitely came out of my solo work. And l learned how to layer harmonies from working with VHÖL. Every musical project gives me something I can put in my toolbox.”

carlag@nowtoronto.com | @carlagillis

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