Former YOB Leader To Release MIDDIAN Debut In March

MIDDIAN, the band featuring former YOB leader Mike Scheidt, will release its debut album, "Age Eternal", in Europe on March 26 via Metal Blade Records (March 23 in Germany, Austria and Switzerland).

MIDDIAN is

Mike Scheidt - Guitar and Vocals
Will Lindsay - Bass and Vocals
Scott Headrick - Drums

"Age Eternal" track listing:

01. Dreamless Eye
02. The Blood Of Icons
03. Age Eternal
04. The Celebrant
05. Sink To The Center

Check out the song "The Celebrant" at the band's MySpace page.

Mike Scheidt on the end of YOB:

"After YOB got back home from our last tour in 2005, it became very obvious that our individual goals in the band had changed. Travis Foster and Isamu Sato both left the band after we explored options for keeping YOB together. Neither of them had the stomach for touring anymore, and I knew I wanted to keep touring and moving forward. After about eight months of thought as whether to continue with what would be YOB's fifth lineup after Isamu and Travis left, and after trying out some fine musicians, I decided to let YOB go."

Mike Scheidt on MIDDIAN:

"So I decided to start a new band: very much in the vein of YOB, but more angry and mid-paced on average, but still with roots in slow doom and the cosmic vibe that was a part of YOB. MIDDIAN is that band. In my mind I was already thinking about who I was going to approach for a rhythm section: my friends Will Lindsay on bass and Scott Headrick on drums. They are both very experienced musicians who, while having roots in extreme music, neither had played doom-influenced music before. I wanted a fresh take on the riffs I was writing. Luckily, they were both into it, and we have been having a blast ever since."

Mike Scheidt on "Age Eternal":

"'Age Eternal' is our first album together, and we are very happy with it overall. It is a solid first album for us and is setting the blueprint for what we do: doom and stoner-influenced heavy music without it being either. It has lots of lurching faster riffs and chord melody not unlike YOB, but yet it is different. It is more urgent, straight-forward, and punk-influenced in many ways, and our bassist Will shares vocal duties with me. The band is extremely collaborative even though I write the tunes thus far. We all have strong ideas and opinions that mesh very well and it culminated in 'Age Eternal'. Plus there is guest vocals from Ben Ward of ORANGE GOBLIN on the last song, 'Sink To The Center', and noise samples from The Monsters Of Pot from Minneapolis, Minnesota. We are very proud to have our first album released by Metal Blade Records."