Our Raw Heart is the eighth studio album by American doom metal band YOB. It was released June 8, 2018, by Relapse Records.[8]
Production
The album was produced by Billy Barnett.[9] The album was inspired by a serious health issue suffered by singer and guitarist Mike Scheidt in early 2017,[6] and most of the music was written while he was in a hospital bed.[7] The album has been described as a cross between the band's two previous studio albums, mixing the aggression of Atma (2011) with the psychedelic experimentation of Clearing the Path to Ascend (2014).[6]AllMusic classified it as a doom metal album "possessed of hope", with elements of sludge metal, stoner metal and post-metal psychedelia.[1]
Critical reception
Our Raw Heart was well received by critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, this release received an average score of 82 based on 10 reviews.[2] Aggregator Album of the Year gave the release a 83 out of 100 based on a critical consensus of 9 reviews.[10]
Metal Injection called the album "engaging and revealing, immediately appealing but with subtle nuances and layers that only become apparent after subsequent listens. It's a powerful and cathartic release,"[4] while Rolling Stone praised the band for "subvert[ing] doom's bleak conventions, painting the genre's slowpoke churn with uplifting melodies, cosmic textures and Scheidt's existential howl like a dreampop Dio."[7]NPR Music said about the album: "the lightness is devastating."[11]
