Live Review: Yob, Alzabo, The Dirac Sea

The Stonehenge-like assortment of monitors that surrounded The Dirac Sea was not only intimidating, it barely gave the four-piece room to move. Despite the space restrictions, their tightly-executed drone-doom set was highlighted by the guttural ejaculations of their singer, whose bear-like physiognomy was clearly just right for the job. Instrumental duo Alzabo followed, with a display of hypnotic doom-based post-rock. Despite their guitarist suffering a complete instrument malfunction (a member of The Dirac Sea came to his rescue with a loan) they lost none of their momentum, building to some classic riffs over semi-improvised beats.

Molten Ball Of Lead is as descriptive a title as you could possibly pin on the sludge metal onslaught that was the opener to Yob's first ever show in Australia. A relentless aural battering carried on at +11 volume for about 20 minutes until Unmask The Spectre introduced some space and allowed Yob to explore melancholy, thoughtful territory rarely touched on by metallers. It also allowed room for the voluptuously bearded Mike Scheidt to demonstrate how he's developed into one of the genre's most versatile and compelling vocalists, with a vast set of lungs to project a horde-like array of voices. Indeed, his body appeared to host multiple personalities as he transformed from being super-polite and appreciative — apologising for "seventeen-hour lag" (which was not at all apparent) and thanking us for coming out on a week night — to an insane-eyed barbarian, leaning over the front row with both fists aloft screaming his soul out. As the heartrending riff of Marrow took shape, cries of recognition burst out and some surprisingly sexy dancing took hold in the front row. But then when the animal rhythms bypass the intellect and penetrate straight into the primal sub-cortex of the brain that controls body movement, why not?

A few minutes after finishing, a slightly sheepish Scheidt returned and announced that as they'd finished early they could play one more. Amid a frenzy of call-outs, Adrift In The Ocean was the clear winner. The band took a moment to retune and recalibrate before executing it with extreme prejudice. The collective buzz within the crowd was that they'd witnessed not just a show but an event that would echo in their shell-shocked minds for many moons to come.