Dennis Cornelius has been part of the American doom metal scene for some time now with stints in Doomstone, Revelation and Place of Skulls. Memory Driven is the man’s new band and Relative Obscurity is their debut album. Considering the pedigree of both Cornelius and his label I Hate when it comes to quality doom I was quite eager to listen to this album.

Memory Driven play a sort of bottom heavy doom rock that is sort of similar to latter day Katatonia but with enough originality in the songwriting to come across as quite original. The band is held together by Conrnelius’s guitar playing and the man does write some quality songs. Non Profundi is a heavy song that channels Katatonia quite nicely and is groovy with a memorable vocal line while Is There Something There? sounds a bit like modern Paradise Lost especially in the vocal melody. However, if you’re thinking Memory Driven is some sort of Peaceville retread then you’d be mistaken. After these first two songs, the album goes off to incorporate bits of prog, 90s alt rock and big 70s inspired guitar to come up with a bunch of songs that are all quite original. Heaven’s Vast has a riff that wouldn’t have been out of place in an Alice in Chains album while Moment starts off like the Obsessed before going off into quieter more melodious territory that is almost reminiscent of something like Spock’s Beard.

The band sounds quite good and while the guitars are front and centre at all times, the rhythm section of David Newcomb (bass) and Tim Mansfield (drums) are very engaging and pull off some intricate playing behind the big downer riffs. The songs are quite engaging and like I said, also original sounding. Memory Driven doesn’t really sound like any particular band. However, the one major drawback for me was Conrnelius’s vocals. His voice is just too thin and nasal to really give these songs the punch they need and with just over an hour of music on offer it gets a bit grating. The other problem is the constant use of electronic noises and beeps and short keyboard pieces at the end of almost every song as it segues into the next which seems a bit pointless to me.

Overall, I’d say Memory Driven has come up with a pretty good album that is severely let down by Cornelius’s vocals. The songs are good and needed a singer who could belt them out with passion. This vocal performance though is just really weak. Still, worth checking out as the band seems like an original entrant in the doom metal scene and you can make up your own minds about the vocals.

Label: I Hate

Year of release: 2009