When an album contains only four tracks, you know they’re going to be monsters, especially when said album is released on Neurot, the label run by megalithic post-metallers Neurosis. Cult ‘doom trio powerhouse’ YOB may be two decades into their career, but ‘Clearing The Path To Ascend’ is anything but the work of a band content to sit on cruise control.
The first track, ‘In Our Blood’ feels like an album in its won right,k and no just on account of its 16-minute running time. it’s not merely a song, but a journey into hell, a dirge-like trudge of power chords reminiscent of early Melvins, only played at half speed.
‘Nothing To Win’ powers from the speakers at a frenzied pace, its sound as murky as hell: the guitars are sludgy, the drums a relentless rumble of thunder half-buried in a mid-range mudslide.
The brooding intro to ‘Unmask the Spectre’ lingers darkly in the shadows for what feels like an eternity, but the levee inevitably breaks. And the deluge of distortion hits just sky of the two-minute mark. It’s a thick, slow-paced punishment. Interspersed with menacing quieter sections that only make the anticipation of the crushing guitars even greater.
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The final track, ‘Marrow’ is a 19-minute monster that starts delicately, somewhere between post-rock and Metallica’s ‘Nothing Else Matters’, rolling and washing and expanding onwards and outwards in a succession of movements. Displaying a remarkable balance between emotive and forceful, it’s huge in every sense, but doomy it isn’t: this is uplifting, transcendental stuff.
Onwards, and very much upwards.
YOB Online
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