yob's "the illusion of motion" is the first part of two yob re-issues that metal blade unleashed onto the world recently. i was really looking forward to these releases because yob is a damn good doom metal band and because first pressings of those two albums are a pain in the ass to come by. so when they were put up in the nuclear blast e-shop and i came across them accidentally doing one of my usual checks, i got feverishly nervous and ordered straight away.
metal blade pressed two colour-ways for each album and black vinyl. in this case the most limited colour was gold and the less limited version was pressed on clear orange. as you can see i opted for the clear orange because i find opaque gold to be a pretty boring colour for vinyl and thus try to avoid it. both records showed up just at released date and the first one i dropped the needle on was "the illusion of motion" right away.
i know three yob records so far."atma" from 2011 is nothing short of a masterpiece and "clearing the path to ascend" from 2014 is a cracker too. then i know some bits of "catharsis" from 2002 and as far as i can remember this album wasn't for me. because "the illusion of motion" was released two years after "catharsis" i wasn't really sure of what would await me here. i refused to pre-listen to the album because i love the thrill of the first complete listen via one's own physical copy.
a little bit like in pre-internet era when there was no net that had you covered with an album leak before the album was actually released. so after i listened to yob's third album in whole i saw my worries disappearing in thin air. "the illusion of motion" is a real compact doom metal record. it feels like the songs are made fom one piece. i saw that metal blade changed the original order of the songs for the vinyl release. i don't see why and if it affects the expirience but for me, it works in this order as well.
on this album i feel the strongest doom influence so far. the bone crushing slow-motion-parts are quite prominent. but of course the trademarks are all here. progressive and ominous riffing, transcendal and spiritual atmosphere and lyrics and mike scheidt's sometimes quirky and sometimes raw voice make it an instant yob classic. love it! re-press comes in a gatefold sleeve with a two-sided poster, clear orange vinyl out of 500 copies and a shri yantra etching on the d-side. metal blade records. 2004/2016.