Yob’s New Track “The Screen” Might be the Heaviest They’ve Ever Released

You guys already know the story quite well by now: Yob frontman/guitarist Mike Scheidt’s fought a harrowing battle with acute diverticulitis last year and nearly died. Mike was nearly no more, and with him would likely have gone Yob, but both have thankfully and miraculously survived to tell the tale.

It’s to be expected, then, that Yob’s new output will be some emotionally heavy stuff, right? Right: today we get to hear their new song “The Screen” — the first to be released from their forthcoming album Our Raw Heart — and hooooo boy, does this one ever deliver.

“The Screen” starts with a massive elephants marching riff that’s like a sludgier version of Gojira, by far the heaviest section of music I can recall Yob ever putting to record. From there it doesn’t relent: Scheidt’s vocals alternate between an almost David Vincent-esque low, spoken growl and his trademark Ozzy-ian / Windstein-ian gruff bellow, while the song expands into wider, more melodic terrain on and off over the course of its ten-minute run time. I haven’t had a chance to dive into the song’s lyrics yet, but I can’t imagine they’re about puppies, bunnies or anything else pleasant. The result is a track exactly as emotionally charged as you’d imagine given all Scheidt has been through over the past year-plus.

Our Raw Heart comes out June 8th via Relapse; pre-order here, and listen to “The Screen” below via Rolling Stone.