Yob: Song by Song is a series of articles that examines each and every Yob song in chronological manner. This one is on The Screen, the second track of their eighth album, Our Raw Heart.
The Screen, AKA, The Steamroller.
The Screen reminds me of the horror film It Follows. An entity invisible to all but its prey follows that person at a slow, ceaseless shuffle, never hurrying, never slowing down, until it reaches the hunted person and turns them into a human pretzel : (
Likewise, The Screen never speeds up and never slows down, with bone–crushing, human–pretzel forming density. It chugs along with heavy palm muting and bone–dry distortion, with only three riffs to the whole song. It’s cyclical, moving from riff A to riff B to riff A to riff B to riff C back to riff A and onwards, ever onwards. This is a statement of intent – most bands wouldn’t have the audacity to do this for nearly 10 minutes, which is a wise move, because most bands couldn’t make it work for 10 minutes. But Yob can. The very simple drumbeat would have been easy to overplay, but drummer Travis Foster avoids this in favour of a ‘colossus out for a stroll’ beat, and it’s all the closer to being a horror soundtrack for it. Mike Scheidt’s vocals, deep and inhuman, intensify this sense of lurking horror – whereas just one song ago I was pontificating on how expansive Yob sounded, now they’re writing streamrolling riffs and calling a song The Screen.
Next track: In Reverie.
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