[Gig Review]: YOB & Supports @ Max Watt’s Melbourne (AU), 19.02.26.
Intro/Thank-You’s:
MASSIVE thank-you’s are in order to headliners YOB (Oregon, US) as well as our own Australian supports in ISUA (Melbourne, AU) and Mountain Wizard Death Cult (Sydney, AU).
A huge thanks to the hardworking staff at both United Front Touring and Max Watt’s Melbourne, both for facilitating the Australian tour and the Melbourne performance we so enjoyed last Thursday.
Finally, big thanks to Richie Black Photography for yet more stellar lens-work. Be sure to peep his links, as well as those of the above artists/stakeholders. (SEE HERE for additional photography alongside images on display in this article, plus footage - Our 27th Gallery of Brewicide!)
The live scene lives and dies on the strength of your support. Want to keep seeing shows? Support your local scene.
Peace, Love and Epic Doom Pilgrimages - Brady.
I didn’t so much ‘set foot’ in Max Watts this evening as I did ‘lethargically trudge’ in. The ambient personality-disordered weather from Melbourne’s perpetually will-they-won’t-they weather patterns adding to that very 2026 sensation of being eager to focus on noise inside the venue. Help drown out the outside-venue noise for a few brief, blissful hours.
Seems the ambiguous ambience of the outside world was permeating indoors. Small initial showing up in total-sum around doors. Likely a by-product of the late working week, tonights’ gig occurring on a Thursday. That awkward last-gasp day between Hump Day and TGIF, it’s one for feeling weary.
That in mind and firmly checking the privileges that came with not having kids/an overlong commute/night-shift to contend with, I count myself lucky. Down the stairs I trudge to my writing duties. Which, after a necessitated pit-stop for a customary pint and heel-toe pivot away from a packed merch-line began my first task - our gig openers, ISUA.
(No one outside my inner crippling perfectionist asked for the intro-stuff, but a bit of garnish on the dish never hurts either).
Ah, ISUA.
Here we are again! Looking and sounding just fabulously misanthropic, Southern-friend and basement-wrecking as always.
ISUA (Melbourne, AU):
(see for: Merch, Video Links, Socials Links, Live Footage, Vinyl Order)
I remarked a while back about enjoying Mammon’s Throne in their role supporting Swallow The Sun (Gig Review here). Specifically, around how multiple rodeos with the same artist can lull one into a false sense of ‘knowing’ what to expect. Made remarks about countless times having copped those guys - oh yeah? ISUA’s got to be at least a few ahead. As a lover of sludge, that’s fine by me but perhaps others who elected to skip over. Man… their loss, eh?
Slinking onstage together, dialling up amps/pedals aged in a barrels’ worth of parmesan cheese fuzz-and-distortion, ISUA gave us their typical sombre, workmanlike entrance. I’m perched up on the near-empty barrier, stepped up from that awkward pit-hexagon layer of steps (I didn’t check for shapes). Watching the locals gear up and tune in, Mr. Black snapping to it already - pun intended.
(Hi Richie! Thanks for the Patreon sub! Did you like my dad-Joke?! This is a test to see if you did, next gig)
There’s that familiar ring of feedback, distortion cutting in low-slung waves across a sparse early crowd, piercing feedback a sludge-metallers’ average Tinnitus Thursday.
Neurodivergent or not and, unless you’re a basement-dweller not at the gig ‘cause someone is wrong about a subgenre tag on Metal-Archives/RateYourMusic - I generally get the vibe metalheads are outsider-ed but interested in people enough to watch. I’m hawkishly on the lookout for one of my fave reactions, the “Helloooooo, What’s All This Then uwu?!”. ‘Cause if a band incites that for new punters - it’s these guys.
Dudes can hang, that’s the vibe. They can hang out, but they’re just as likely to hang you.
Take frontman Mikey, for instance. Flowing locks spent mostly draped over mic or whirled overhead later, an unassuming demeanour about his entrance onstage, a deliberation of gait and speech. It’s pretty well all in opposition to the archetypal tropes about stocky, whacked-out/psychotic doom-metal/sludge frontmen. That is, ‘til the kid gets worked up into a feverish thousand-yard stare of straight malice, arching catlike just as the riff-hammer drops. Caterwauling screeches hit glass-gargle, screaming without a microphone both into the crowd solo and above backing music later. That’s some metal as fark stuff right there.
Last time I copped something of that vocal ilk was likely either at another ISUA gig, or when Deafheaven’s vocalist screeched most of Sunbather mic-less at ArcTanGent. It’s some peak shit, basically, and it works a charm on the audience. Meerkat heads, meerkat heads everywhere.
Staggering and pivoting around the mic like he’s Mike Williams on all the 10mg Ritalin boosters I’ve got tucked away in the centre console of the Subaru, Mike(y) is joined by choral head-nods and slow sways of a band warming themselves for the headbanger-riff. Plodding along with stoner-rock surety, Geeks has martial lockdown over a simple drumkit with both crash and ride big enough to register as their own postcodes. The warbling between the eye-vibrating cymbal-bashes is given significant heft by the odd careful chest-thump by man-mountain Campbell. Seen elsewhere perforating decibel limits with all manner of samples and pedal-driven noise, his bass-work here is both stoic and creative where needed. Unsurprising from a man who makes a bass guitar look as small as a six-string feels in my own bassist hands.
Adjoining this thudding vivisection of distorted bass, one-two stomp and banshee-like wails are the deceptively clever stylings of guitarists Dharma and Greg, dad joke and Dom, a duo as alliterated in riffage on the outset as in namesake. Scrambling across an impressive configuration of chordal shapes, it’s not just bong-power-chord-and-done for these two, either. Both members of the Dharma/Dom team rip out some impressive lead embellishments, sporadic soloing teetering nicely from bluesy-cruisy to Maiden-eque.
“Cool night out for a Thursday,” Mikey opines on our current weekday luck, before summarily mentioning the best way to connect with the bands’ through physical LP, less so via self-boycotted streaming services. Based. Punk. DIY. Just like back in ol’ NOLA. With I, Abandon and December 2025 LP II in the bag, these guys are slowly backing up their Black Flag gig-ethos with an emerging canon of swampish, nihilistic sludge-doom.
You might’ve seen ISUA around the traps enough times in the past to skimp on the opening set, but if you were too busy engorging thyself on Happy Hour pints and HotStar Chicken, I’m afraid thou missedeth-out (no pun intended re: Thou).
Wait, what?! Never mind me, must’ve jinxed myself. Geez, man, you’re pretty much all here? Where’d all you lot spring from between first and second band? Had a few beugs in the warren of leftover pipeline under the city surface, watched IT and decided to Tim Curry your way out one of the vents?! Ah, you bunch of pesky little doom-metal scallywags! Come on, then!
Mere seconds after I’d briefly headed upstairs to breathe some mechanically-condensed flavoured air-nicotine in a little purple device that’s ‘NoT As BaD FoR YoU As SmoKiNg’ (cop, fellow vapers) I return to find the place is now very densely, tightly packed. Rather than knock about punters, sheepishly “Mi ‘scusi”-ing my way through a sea of bodies, I perched up behind the sound desk. Haven’t seen it like this for doom since Conan played, damn.
I stow the consternation about relative lack of turnout for the first band, reminding myself adults are separate people with their own lives, and settle in for the next round.
Now, to kick off the second band, I crave context. Just what would we call state-specific nationalism? Stateism?
I’m too much of a crust-punk (in look and smell, least) to bother too much with the concept of national/state borders, usually. But when Sydney’s Mountain Wizard Death Cult march confidently onstage with all the bravado of a hardcore band in their 20’s? Yeah-nah, all bets are off, Victoria. The Coffs Harbour-ian kid in me beams some State of Origin pride. Toohey’s does a way better job of being the generic brew than XXXX or Melbourne Bitter anyway. I have spoken. (I’ll give it to you on the pints front, Melbourne - schooners are a tease, and a middy/pot is just an insult in glass form).
Elliot Smith waltzes out in semi-strut sporting a Converge shirt, my interest already piqued by the choice. What soon follows is expressive, energetic mid-scream body language more suggestive of, say, an up-and-coming post-hardcore band than doom-metal. Again, something-something-judg-book-cover. Replacing JJ Brady since the last time MWDC and I were in the same room (New Dead Festival in Adelaide, maybe?), the recently-joined vocalist stands primarily perpendicular to the audience, wailing and growling a battery of vocal shrieks and grumbles, non-mic hand often tucked behind his back. There’s moments such as midway through the second track, where Elliot just fully collapses, both for sheer performative effect and from what looks like genuine emotional/physical impact. It works. The crowd laps it up, self included.
It’s an interesting juxtaposition to the bluesy black-and-roll melodies emanating from the amps of Chris Chaplin (Guitar) and Anthony Langton (Bass), pinned down by a similar fancy-free/rigid dichotomy of Lachlan Wink’s drumwork as that of the openers’ . The band overall defy the lethargic, heroin-sick trope espoused of a doom-metal band, that’s for sure.
Cranking the hyperactivity up a notch, the bands’ in full fledged ambulation throughout - Lachlan’s head as cobra-like as the upper limbs, Chris and Anthony causing more near-misses via swaying headstocks than the average afternoon on the West Gate. All wrapped in a musical package that gets the totemic avatars of Kirk Windstein and Kurt Ballou grinning furiously with stimming-delight.
Not for the first time tonight and, in similar vein to the love shown from bands on Your Mate Bookings’ bills, somewhere between the rip-and-tear of ‘Initiation’ and sneak-peek into ‘Ash Into Glass’ (and an as-yet unnamed burner of a ditty from an upcoming EP), Elliot gives pause to pointedly call out the support, professionalism and mateship fostered by Greg from United Front Touring. If you’ve read a gig review of mine before, it seems a running thread that I point this out… and with good cause. Naming the promoter personally is just one incremental part of a statement, but it’s indicative of sincere thanks and gratitude for efforts far greater than what we’re privy to for the fun bit. Respect.
Throughout, I’ve felt just as much like I’m watching Nicolas Cage Fighter as I am New South Welsh doom. It’s just a vibe, and one I find hard to communicate succinctly outside ‘go to a hardcore bands’ show, then a doom bands’ - that’s MWDC’. That’s a pretty iffy space to navigate, the sparse and the punchy. The resultant wailing and hooting of applause at the sets’ conclusion is evidentiary of a job well done as the penultimate pump-primer.
Selfishly - y’all always welcome back across the border guys. Any excuse to escape Sydney for a minute, am I right?
YOB (Oregon, USA):
Alright, here we are. Fearing more verbosity considering what’s just followed for two opening bands? Best lobotomise yourself down to ADHD level or grab a cup of tea, then.
I agonised long, hard and painfully on how to exactly convey YOB’s set. How to do it within a finite amount of words (limits of the reader re: ridiculousness, not my own). How to employ the vibe without constantly veering back to corny superlatives like ‘timeless’, ‘spiritual’, ‘transcendent’, etc.
Sorry, folks! I know setlist.fm says ‘just’ six songs were played, but they weren’t, actually. They were six individualised but cleverly interwoven journeys. Live musical odysseys across the entire creative spectrum of doom/stoner/post-metal, psychedelia, Pure Rock Fury and so much more. Heck, you guys aren’t the police - I’d get away with recanting my first experience with hallucinogens in a setting outside the house (at a stoner/doom/post/etc local gig, naturally) with less kaleidoscopic wishy-washiness than what a YOB set truly deserves.
Surely there were scores of folk in there on all sorts, others more measured and sober as a judge/to varying degrees. No judgement cast either way. For those of you who were there though, substance-affected, sober or lifelong straight-edge - can we all just agree that this set really felt like being on drugs? And not even like, past experience but that almost comical Reagonomics-era scare campaign PSA kind of vibe, right?
I felt completely and utterly transported to another realm, that’s for sure.
Lilting cautiously with sombre, soft hits against the metal circles sitting in broad, spindly arrangement atop rolling, plodding toms and bass-drum, Dave French is a couple of years into the YOB rotation and feeling as permanent a landscape feature as The Great Dividing Range.
Warbling with whole-note cautiousness, only to later bounce around the fret like a doom-metal insect, bassist Aaron Rieseberg is in a pocket he’s comfortably honed within the band since 2009. Sure, he’s given a little longer a sonic leash with the inclusion of only a single guitar, but he hones it to devastating sonic effect throughout the night. It’s testament to the rhythm-section here; extended musical passages at some of the glacial tempos of YOB’s slowest moments requires a lot more precision and groove than our more-is-more culture would have you think.
Inevitable then, that heads are turning primarily towards the lifelong mainstay of the act, the deceptively dextrous soft instrumental arpeggiation of vocalist/guitarist Michael Scheidt working in trio to severely betray the sonic weight of what we all knew would follow as opener ‘Prepare The Ground’ seeks to do just that. Formwork laid over a lofty opener, building towards that climactic Cult of Neur-Isis post-metal climb we’re all desperately eager for.
And boy howdy, folks. Boy howdy. The sheer ferocity with which these guys just physically throw themselves into the Big Riff? Really wouldn’t have been surprised if three skeletons tore out in unison, such was the heft with which the three men are gyrating, back-swinging and hair-whipping. Showing the comparatively younger opening acts up with dwarven forged-fire of hammer and stone, Mike’s vocals bring to mind a Gimli possessed: audible, but powerfully gruff and throaty to boot.
Weaving through bass/guitar harmonics and culminating in several breakdown-style riff moments that I can only sigh and whip out the ‘absolutely devastating’ moniker for, I’m again lost for appropriate words. They just don’t convey it. The stocky stature, wild beards and flowing locks don’t help traverse lexical ground enough. These guys look, feel and sound both Byzantine and totally modern, timeless as the shifting of sand beneath our feet.
A brief howl of incredulous applause, and a room-wide hush you won’t hear often for the break-neck intro to ‘Nothing To Win’. A brief “how you doin’” and the most Donavan McNabb But Not Really ‘you got it, yeah?’ double-arm throw, then both hands slap hard against the fretboard, the acknowledgement done and dusted. Riffs are to be done, and there’s an entire bands’ discography worth encased in each of these six scriptures. On yer bike, Mike.
The riffage here brings locals Kilat to mind. That is, riffing that eschews the ploddier style of doomy chord progression for a relentless black-metal styled hammering of chords at tremolo speed. Akin to the aforementioned act, this results in a discordant wind-tunnel effect of ferocity. In the live setting, this one’s got palpable teeth - and they’re gnashing. To add gravity to the musical feel, Scheidt and Rieseberg throw long-haired arcs of histrionic headbanging, triangulating themselves in front of Dave like a doom-throne trio in ritual. The drum-meister pulls the minimalist bowstring of a singular kick-drum beat, before Mike belts loose one last, gut-wrenching roar with a gusto that doesn’t slip once the entire set. A climactic doom-metal breakdown ensues amidst much fist-pumping across barrier and stage. Bet old mate in the Converge shirt is loving this.
Allowing just a few moments of repose, our frontman announces gives verbal cheers to both support acts. Mike goes on to announce his third opus in this Homerian epic as “A track I don’t think we’ve ever played in Australia before, ‘least of all in Melbourne” to a hugely-enthused cheer. I know, right? People like the rare stuff? The mind boggles.
Sarcasm aside, ‘Upon The Sight of The Other Shore’ is in and of itself a mind-boggler. Context doesn’t rid it of said effect, take myself as n = 1 sample size for that study. For the other eager participants in this action-research, they’re indeed treated to an experience as lengthy and meditatively simplistic as it is meandering and psychedelic. For the first good while, it’s stoner turned up to Cannabis Corpse death metal tempo, almost, raging as guitarist and bassist punch hard down top-string, upper-neck.
Heck, the guitar SNAFU towards the midsection of this leviathan did little to detract from the epic, effects-laden single string warble which slowly but surely polymorphs, unfurling alongside soft whispers and vocal utterances from Mike before breaking into complete, funereal doom-metal depression. It’s this snatch from an organically-evolving line into fist-fretted doom-stomp that hits just as goddamn hard as your most ferocious grindcore act (a reluctant but accepting admission from this blast-lover).
The abrupt and stoic shift from thoughtful meditation to a relentless riff battering, and the numerous rhythmic and melodic shifts… just so much of all this doesn’t feel possibly concocted nor employed by three people alone. Yet, here we are among a triad of giants.
Don’t think I need to even mention the volcanic eruption of applause as the hard-edged riff comes to an abrupt stop - just did anyway.
Fourth song ‘Ball of Molten Lead’ and I’m already experiencing two very conflict emotions: apprehension and wonder. Normally, a fear-state is pretty conducive to suppressing more whimsical thoughts and vice-versa. No really, we’re wired for it as a survival mechanism, so to be impatiently wanting the entire discography thrown at me whilst silently wonder if I’ve the emotional fortitude for more YOB? Just goes to show these guys evoke the full emotional spectrum.
The gentle psychedelia of the first few bars, drummer softly caressing the edge of cymbals - part of me knows this is merely ceremony before the Zen masters close the door and reprimand our doom-monk asses. We (The Doomer Congregation) respond in kind, the entire venue exploding into a whiplashed frenzy of headbanging as ethereal whimsy is straight up shanked, gutted and curb-stomped by the apocalyptic riff-crescendo. YOB don’t just soften back down so fast though, and the sheer time spent in that bludgeoning doom-chug ricochet tapers off at the exact moment where things start feeling existential again. I particularly love the lead work on this song as an album listener, so to see the mix of bluesy-cruisy with white-hot shred just buries two fangs in two guitar-solo prongs down some place deep in the hindbrain.
I’m starting to physically well up with emotion at the grandeur of it all, before that glorious final riff-eruption cleans the emotional palette. Damn, dude - did they get Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung to write the riffs or something? I’m in all kinds of primal melancholy over here.
‘Marrow’ follows, copping as hearty a “yeeeeeeeeew!” of Aussie endearment from my lungs as damn well most the crowd in unison. A clear fan-favourite, we lean our heads in closer, cartoon character style, fully and blissfully cognisant of the songs’ shift under soft blue light, emanating with drums and bass alongside sparse, breathy low-slung song and spoken word. The monastic effect is immediate, and we loll our heads like so many strands of kelp. Fitting, too - there’s a very slow-motion early Mastodon vibe to the riff germinating across many minutes. Suddenly, the pacing and key changes hearken us more towards the 80’s, a stadium rocker of a riff garnering applause, silenced not too long after for more sombre psychedelic sermon. Mike raises a beer during a particularly light and hearty refrain, responded with yet more applause. We’re puppets on a string and this guy’s Hypnotoad or something. Great band to utilise for psyops, MK Ultra.
Mike belts out his loudest, proudest and longest vocal refrain of the night to bring the song to thunderous conclusion - and applause. We all kind of know it, and there’s almost a ceremonial sadness to the mutual smiles as he announces both his love for the tour, Greg and crew over at United Front, supports (“Top-tier sick-cunt” Happy Birthday given to MWDC in particular), us, and a touching “Take care of each other - we’ll do the same”.
Well slap my arse and call me Sally, readers. If that didn’t hit like the lightning bolt of a cult leaders’ maddest oratory during the deepest throes of follower-delusion, I don’t know what does. Again, revoking my toxic-masculinity Man Card for the edgy guy in a Sargeist sleeveless shirts at… some gym probably, I’ll happily admit it took physical pain not to choke back tears at this moment and quite a few others.
‘Quantum Mystic’. Knowing it’s the last song, the preceding emotional weight and impact somehow portrayed by three musical instruments and a voice, the night so far… yeah, I begrudge no one who had waterworks all night, but especially not this closer. You couldn’t pick a more suitable final sojourn. Wobbling with deliberately slow and off-kilter gait, the first minute or two feel like a newborn lamb striding straight into battering-ram adulthood. Double-stops and sudden thwa-thwack of the kick-drum, Mike delving into his most bilious and gnarly vocal register, the bass seeming to whirl as though being laundered - it’s a lot of a lot from just three people. Jangly, gnarled chords introduce a denoument of dysphoria, flushed away by a crushing wall of riffage and screams. It feels almost psychologically impossible to endure, but the venue-wide booming of refrains about mystics as the final crashing riffs shoulder-barge us has some weirdly druidic quality to it.
Druids. That’s what these guys are. Esoteric folk from the state of Oregon. A land of wilderness, ever-shifting climate and a stoic refusal to engage as readily with American norms about clean-cut lawns and white-picket fences. As Mike and Co make prayer hands and bow slowly to an audience packed with fist-pumps, it’s almost harder to believe we witnessed a doom-metal band playing than some secretive pagan altar.
Like Batushka at The Corner, I’m left leaving another gig feeling less like I’ve been tasked to opine about bands’ performances than I am requested to ask what the face of God looks like. Sure, here’s a review, but do yourself a favour and see YOB live. After all my blabbering, my final point is thus - it’s an experience truly beyond words.
