Local Review: Yield – Self-titled demo

Yield
Self-titled demo

Yield = Alice in Chains + Metallica’s “Sanitarium” + Extreme

 

Mid-80s chunka-chunka low-end metal parleys with tender, suicidal Alice-in-Chains ballads touching on themes of mind-rupturing confusion with plenty of guitar-pick’d arpeggios and minor chords (choicest example: “Brainwash”). It’s been done before, but Yield succeeds at a much-traversed genre because they’re completely un-self-aware. The more accessible tunes of Tool would be the sound I’d most closely compare Yield to, not because they spit out time-signature acrobats or come anywhere close to genius, but because of the spirit of epic oppression that permeates their aura. Did I just say “aura?”