MEMORY GARDEN — Doomain (review)

Album · 2013 · Traditional Doom Metal

4/5 · 2013-05-02
adg211288

Doomain (2013) is the fifth full-length album to be released by Swedish doom metal act Memory Garden. This is the first release from the band in five years, since Carnage Carnival (2008) was released. That’s quite the long gap between releases, but is actually several years shorter than their previous release gap between Mirage (2000) and the aforementioned Carnage Carnival. The band has also seen some line-up changes this time around with Johan Fredrikson replacing Ken Johansson on bass and Ante Mäkelä replacing Anders Looström on guitars.

I hadn’t heard of Memory Garden before Doomain, and my first impressions of the band are that they are something of an enigma. While they aren’t doing anything radical in a progressive or avant-garde way, they do combine elements of two distinct genres of metal that are for all intents and purposes at the opposite end of the metal spectrum, namely doom metal, which is the album’s main focus, and power metal. Now in theory I wouldn’t really credit these two styles of metal as being compatible. Doom metal is generally known for its slower tempo and darker tone, while power metal is fast and usually uplifting music. Memory Garden make it work though by being very much in the traditional end of doom metal’s own little spectrum, crossing over into traditional heavy metal as well. The use of the fast power metal sections provides excellent flavour within what is already a really strong traditional doom metal sound.

The end result isn’t as thrilling as I’d really like it to be though. While there is a generally high consistency between all nine tracks of the album, it’s rare that a single track manages to stand out from the crowd to assert itself as an album highlight. Barren Lands earns this distinction with its mix of lighter sections with the usual doom/heavy metal sound, as well as some vocal variation between the usual clean vocals and some growling, backed up by some light symphonic keyboards and semi-progressive structure. The impact of the track is increased because it is actually presented back to back with another highlight, Violate & Create, which is a more aggressive song than the album typically delivers, featuring minimal doom elements. The former surges straight into the latter in such a way that you may not even notice the track has changed; a really effective duo.

The problem, for want of a better word, is that apart from this midway duo the rest of the album, though most definitely praiseworthy, does seem to fall victim to a bit of the old playing it safe game. I know that’s something of a paradoxical thing to say given that Memory Garden are far from what you could consider generic, in fact I’d go as far to say that they’ve been quite innovative on Doomain. There are no bad songs here but in general the album just doesn’t manage to completely wow me. It’s a great release, and that was clear right from my first listen, but ultimately Doomain is not an album I’d feel inclined to play all that often. Satisfactory from beginning to end but I expect Memory Garden have better in them.

81/100

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven (http://metaltube.freeforums.org/memory-garden-doomain-t2898.html))