||  Artist......: Yob                                                ||
||  Album.......: Our Raw Heart                                      ||
||  Year........: 2018                                               ||

||  Genre.......: Metal                                              ||
||  Label.......: Relapse Records                                    ||

||  Source......: WEB (16bit)                                        ||
||  Encoder.....: libFLAC                                            ||
||  Bitrate.....: 914 kbps avg.                                      ||
||  F.Rate......: 44.1kHz                                            ||

||  Playtime....: 01:13:16 / 502.42MB                                ||
||  R.Date......: 2024-09-07                                         ||
||  S.Date......: 2018-06-08                                         ||
||  Website.....: http://deezer.com/album/59915842                   ||

||  01. Ablaze                                             10:13     ||
||  02. The Screen                                          9:49     ||
||  03. In Reverie                                          9:43     ||
||  04. Lungs Reach                                         5:39     ||
||  05. Beauty in Falling Leaves                           16:27     ||
||  06. Original Face                                       7:03     ||
||  07. Our Raw Heart                                      14:22     ||

||  Nobody in metal right now is as qualified as Yob frontman Mike   ||
||  Scheidt to write an album this hypnotically beautiful and        ||
||  deeply peaceful, or this existentially violent with such a       ||
||  breathtaking resolution to serenity. Mainly because Scheidt      ||
||  nearly didn't live to write the album.                           ||

||  Scheidt was diagnosed with acute diverticulitis in November      ||
||  2016 and dealt with the diagnosis appropriately. In January      ||
||  2017, he tells Noisey he began feeling ill one day but opted     ||
||  not to go to a medical clinic. Instead, he went grocery          ||
||  shopping. Scheidt recalls standing in the deli meat aisle and    ||
||  experiencing world-distorting pain and cold sweats, which        ||
||  resulted in a trip to the ER. After "the next wave of pain hit   ||
||  me harder than anything that has ever has hit me in my lifetime  ||
||  up to that point," Scheidt was immediately admitted and pumped   ||
||  full of ineffective Dilaudid. Then the diagnosis came û a        ||
||  diverticula had burst. Had the Yob frontman waited another day   ||
||  to go to the doctor, he would've died.                           ||

||  Scheidt began to heal in the hospital without surgery, but upon  ||
||  transitioning back to consuming liquids for the first time       ||
||  since his admittance, the pain returned in droves. Now surgery   ||
||  was imminent. The procedure took seven hours and Scheidt came    ||
||  out on the other side alive with a long road to recovery ahead   ||
||  of him. Not long into his healing process shortly after the      ||
||  surgery, Scheidt suffered from a serious MRSA infection from     ||
||  which he would also recover. Once back on his feet, literally    ||
||  and musically, Scheidt began the process of forming Our Raw      ||
||  Heart.                                                           ||

||  Scheidt likens his near-death experience to a hard drive crash.  ||
||  "Some things just didn't come back. Others came back in          ||
||  completely different ways. Others are still there but my         ||
||  perspective is completely different. I live in a different       ||
||  world now, and all of that went into this albumùnew insight, a   ||
||  new sense of self." He tells Matt Bacon of Metal Injection that  ||
||  he'd been messing with DADGAD tuning on guitar post-surgeries,   ||
||  learned bouzouki, and took the time to expand upon his clean     ||
||  singing voice. In essence, Mike Scheidt is a different man now,  ||
||  and only from that renewed sense of self can come such an album  ||
||  as Our Raw Heart.                                                ||

||  Scheidt won't reveal the lyrical meanings of Our Raw Heart, but  ||
||  the album seems to musically mimic his experience in the past    ||
||  year and a half. The 10-minute opening salvo of "Ablaze" slowly  ||
||  unfurls its blistering pain in a haze of swirling, distorted     ||
||  reverberations. "Ablaze" keeps a steady 6/8 time and evokes      ||
||  feelings of spiraling downward as if it were the closing track   ||
||  to Our Raw Heart, summarizing all the grief and woe into one     ||
||  final tolling of the funeral bell before only silence remains.   ||
||  The following song "The Screen" is more immediate in its         ||
||  delivery. Scheidt and company have stepped out from the veils    ||
||  of sustain found on "Ablaze" and revealed chugging               ||
||  Gojira-styled riffs accompanied by bouts of lumbering            ||
||  dissonance.                                                      ||

||  Then there's "In Reverie" and "Lungs Reach." Both start off      ||
||  quietly tip-toeing in the background of soft ambiance and        ||
||  gentle waves of distortion, but neither stay in such a state     ||
||  for very long. "In Reverie" brings even more of the discordant   ||
||  guitar work "The Screen" originally displayed, but Scheidt       ||
||  relies on Warrel Dane-esque cleans in slow motion throughout     ||
||  the track rather than raspy screams. "Lungs Reach" is even       ||
||  slower, even more droning, and by far the most pissed off Our    ||
||  Raw Heart gets. Scheidt is bellowing growls into the abyss at    ||
||  full force and despite the lack of speed, the trio is following  ||
||  up those guttural displays of anguish with just as much fury     ||
||  and uncompromising force as they possibly can.                   ||

||  From the dark reaches of the void the first four tracks of Our   ||
||  Raw Heart spiral into comes an expanding pinpoint of light.      ||
||  "Beauty In Falling Leaves" marches through the nothingness       ||
||  bearing hope and lanterns burning rich with purpose. Close your  ||
||  eyes while listening to "Beauty In Falling Leaves." In its       ||
||  aural tapestry, morning slowly unfurls from a rising sun and     ||
||  burns away the darkness and dew. It's the dawning of a new day,  ||
||  a new life. Maybe that's not what Scheidt intended, but "Beauty  ||
||  In Falling Leaves" is just too powerful a song not to make you   ||
||  feel something.                                                  ||

||  On "Original Face," Yob seems to reverse what was happening on   ||
||  "Ablaze." The latter felt like the closing moments of a life     ||
||  while the former takes that same sound, strips away the          ||
||  fogginess of its distant production style, and incorporates      ||
||  more positive-sounding melodies in the vein of "Beauty In        ||
||  Falling Leaves." Finally, there's the title track of the album   ||
||  to close things out."Our Raw Heart" employs the hazy             ||
||  brushstrokes of "Ablaze," but brings forth more meditative       ||
||  melodies with heavily delayed acoustic guitars and towering      ||
||  vocals. From death to rebirth to life, Our Raw Heart comes full  ||
||  circle in a breathtaking climax.                                 ||

||  Yob's approach to all the aforementioned moods throughout Our    ||
||  Raw Heart is very much rooted in their usual heaviness. Our Raw  ||
||  Heart is a unique record in Yob's catalog, but it's not going    ||
||  to isolate fans or make you double check who you're listening    ||
||  to. Moreso than anything else, Our Raw Heart will completely     ||
||  floor you. It's a masterwork that couldn't have come from        ||
||  anywhere else but the torment, the fear, and the rebirth and     ||
||  swelling heart of one Mike Scheidt.                              ||