Album Of The Week: Yob Clearing The Path To Ascend

The TV miniseries Cosmos, both in its O.G. Carl Sagan form and its rebooted Neil DeGrasse Tyson iteration, works, if you want it to, as a smart science lesson for kids. It's a lionization of the iconoclasts, throughout history, who helped us understand how the universe works, and an approachable science-fictony way to teach science facts without making kids feel like they're in class. But neither one became a stoner favorite by explaining scientific concepts to kids. They do that, sure, but they also work on a blow-your-fucking-mind level, mostly by pointing out the tiny infinitesimal place that we occupy within the larger universe -- a larger universe that, for all we know, is just one speck in a universe of universes. Watching Cosmos is, among other things, an exercise in challenging your imagination by making yourself feel as small as possible. Another way to do that same thing: Spend some time with Clearing The Path To Ascend, the new album from the Portland doom metal band Yob, which is practically a universe unto itself. You can't just throw Clearing The Path on and go about your day. It's an album that forces you to enter a deep-concentration zone where you stop thinking about where one song ends and another begins, where you become a bug trapped in its amber.