Memory Driven – Relative Obscurity

site | label | buy

This Oklahoma-based doom four-piece are one of the few bands truly deserving of the title ‘epic’. With Nick Holmes-like vocals and expansive and varied arrangements akin to My Dying Bride or Opeth this whole album, their debut, forms a single hour-long piece with some of the tightest progressive rhythm playing this side of Dream Theater in a sombre doom style with refined lead guitar, more riffs than the first four Black Sabbath albums, atmospheric synth parts, and everything in between. Relative Obscurity is a doom record like no other. Grander, more complex. It plays like a soundtrack with some of the intentionally under-polished production and guitar tones of Clutch giving the whole thing a sound that feels more genuine and is far more fitting against the occasionally haunting and always downbeat vocals. With doom metal being so strong this year it may be too soon to call it the doom metal album of the year, but it’s certainly the most technically impressive so far.

Written by Andy Lye
More: Albums, Doom Metal, Quick.Play Reviews, Memory Driven