YOB in Copenhagen 18/9/2014

I was fortunate to discover this Oregonian psychedelic doom metal trio a couple months before they came around to perform in Denmark, and furthermore get a ticket in advance before .

The opening act, Pallbearer, I can gather have gotten some extremely love-it-or-hate-it reactions with their latest LP on a scale rarely seen unless there's a radical change in sound from the artist's signature style. I'm not terribly familiar with PB, their sound had an unique spacy and floaty yet melancholic atmosphere with a however consistent sound to it so I have no idea whether they only played songs from their new album. Their songwriting could be a bit less samey, though, occasionally dragging out a section perhaps for too long for my liking.

As for the main attraction YOB, I was told that they always impress in the live and I were not disappointed. Despite consisting of just three people, their extensive use of effects pedals and fantastic sense of instrumental interplay made them sound like a much bigger orchestra. The intricate instrumental group dynamic is not the only area in which they're as much an heir to the 1970s progressive rock movement as to the psychedelic hard rock and proto-doom of the era, they also kept my attention way better than Pallbearer despite not only playing twice the set length but also many of their songs easily reaching the 20 minute mark. The strength of the songwriting's building up and releasing tension between transition through different sections in a forwards-moving linear narrative structure is easily as well meticulously built up as the best ELP or Yes epics despite being nowhere as technical. In a sense they're for the more spacy psychedelic kind of doom metal what the now-defunct Reverend Bizarre (whom I sadly never got to see live) were for the epic and mournful romantic type, applying the compositional ambition and instrumental interplay of progressive rock to a doom metal context.

All in all it adds up to one of the most satisfying concert experiences I've had in a very long time.