2014 Song of the Year: YOB, “Marrow”
Before any music had surfaced from YOB‘s 2014 outing, Clearing the Path to Ascend (review here), the band posted an update about the songwriting that referred to “the most beautiful arrangement” they had ever done. When the 18:48 closing track “Marrow” surfaced on their seventh album and Neurot Recordings debut, there was little doubt concerning which was the arrangement in question.
The first time I heard “Marrow” was sitting in the basement of V39, which is the building across from the 013 venue in Tilburg, the Netherlands, where Roadburn is held. Upstairs, the merch market was setting up for the day, but in the basement, in a dark room with a tiny stage, rows of chairs, a small P.A. and a bar in back, was a listening session for the album, the title of which was printed on a small promotional postcard placed on each chair. “Coming this fall.” Fair enough.
“Marrow” is led into by “Unmask the Spectre,” a 15-minute exploration that hits its apex late. There is, however, about 40-seconds of ambient guitar and spacious effects swirling after the chaos has subsided, and the fadeout of that gives flowing movement into the silence from which the opening guitar line of “Marrow” emerges. It’s less than a minute before bassist Aaron Rieseberg and drummer Travis Foster join in, which leaves guitarist/vocalist Mike Scheidt to set the initial atmosphere for what will become YOB‘s boldest and most melodic construction to date. Already by then, Clearing the Path to Ascend has taken listeners up, down and through an emotional torrent, songs like the raging “Nothing to Win” and the perpetually-searching “In Our Blood” establishing the dynamic course beyond YOB‘s beginnings — which, make no mistake, are essential to the makeup of what we think of today as cosmic doom — and further into something wholly their own; a sound as distinct and identifiable as Sleep‘s is to Sleep, as Neurosis‘ is to Neurosis.
It’s just before two and half minutes have passed that “Marrow” kicks in a fuller-toned roll, more low end and harder-hit drums, but the pace is still fluid, more serene than tense. Scheidt‘s vocals follow a pattern of shorter lines feeding into longer ones, his voice clean, ethereal and echoing over the distortion and a shift into the bridge that leads to the first of the song’s choruses:
Fall and see
When there’s no ground
To feel, To endure
Rise, rise in your heart
Time will crawl to the sea
Time will fall inside the dream
The cycle stops to begin again with the verse, but already the layering in Scheidt‘s voice distinguishes the song as something special and expanding YOB‘s breadth from what they’ve done before. In both his guitar work — a later solo has a wistful blues to it that speaks to classic rock — and his vocals, Scheidt‘s expressiveness throughout “Marrow” is raw. He sounds sincere no matter how many layers of his voice appear, and there are only more as the next chorus arrives. Just past 10:30, after a soulful harmonization of the word “time,” the bass and drums drop out and it’s the guitar left alone again. Producer Billy Barnett contributes Hammond as Rieseberg and Foster rejoin the progression, and Clearing the Path to Ascend‘s final movement is underway.
I didn’t know the lyrics sitting in that small theater room downstairs at V39, but even without, tears welled up in my eyes. It is, as advertised, the most beautiful arrangement YOB have ever done, and “beautiful” is precisely the right word for it. “Marrow” never has its roaring moment as so many YOB songs do, but it builds in that final movement to an apex that’s as satisfying if not more so than any growl could be. Rieseberg‘s bass swells in the mix gorgeously shortly after the 14-minute mark, and Scheidt repeats the last verse over the build in progress. At 17:49, after its complete, swirling crescendo, “Marrow” cuts back to the quiet guitar line that started it. What needed to be said has been said, and the final sustained note hums its finish.
YOB have a tradition of grand closers. It goes all the way back: 2011’s Atma had “Adrift in the Ocean,” 2009’s The Great Cessation had its title-track, 2005’s The Unreal Never Lived had “The Mental Tyrant,” 2004’s The Illusion of Motion had its title-track, 2003’s Catharsis likewise, and 2002’s Elaborations of Carbon, formative as it was, had “Asleep in Samsara.” “Marrow” is not only the most forward-thinking of them, it is a singular achievement in songwriting and execution. For Scheidt, Rieseberg and Foster, it is a triumph along a creative pursuit that seems to be relentless in its tenure and its honesty, and for me, it’s the song by which 2014 will be defined.
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Honorable mention to Witch Mountain‘s “Can’t Settle,” Mars Red Sky‘s “Join the Race,” Wo Fat‘s “The Conjuring” and Sleep‘s “The Clarity.”
I put this on in the background while I did some work and to be honest I barely noticed it! Maybe I was just hyper-focused.
Of those listed my favorite is the Wo Fat song. Although I do dig the new Sleep tune
It is by far my song of the year as well. Perfection. Seen them live twice, they played that song each time. Congrats Yob!
I discovered this song two weeks ago. And I would say it is 2018 best song for me. I even don’t want to say 2018.