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Reviews
Ahab: The call of the wretched sea
20/11/07 || Global Domination
Fuck me, a German funeral doom band?! Never heard of such a thing before coming out from the land of shit-eating porn, bratwurst, and power metal fairyness (don’t feel bad, my Teutonic friends, you’ve got a lot of things going for you, such as Necrophagist and all that thrash metal goodness). Ahab is one of the most welcome surprises I’ve had in the last year. I’ve seldom heard such well played, thrilling slab of funeral doom before, only bands that truly know what they’re doing come out with a debut album so fucken brilliant!
Funeral doom can be harder to understand than a menstruating woman, and is not for those with a short attention span, but if you’re looking to get into it, this is a great starting point. “The Call of the Wretched Sea” is one of the most exhilarating experiences you could find in the genre. This is a record of such dark, oppressive and inversive atmosphere, it’s easy to become lost in its cold, mournful embrace. The brutality and heaviness found here are astounding and will make you feel like unnumbered tons of ocean water are suffocating you. Ahab’s songwriting is easily equal to those of bands that have mastered the style, such as Morgion or Evoken. Heavily distorted guitars, eerie leads, abrasive death growls, Gregorian chants, pulsating bass lines, crushing snare and cymbal work with sparse double bass, and strategically placed, subtle keyboard melodies. All these elements are combined masterfully by these guys, avoiding clichés by structuring the songs to flow in a perfect fashion.
The inspiration for Ahab’s work comes from the immortal “Moby Dick” novel of Hermann Melville, a classic that I’ve yet to read, but should do so one of these days. I’m familiar with the tale’s main developments, and this record does them justice, musically and lyrically bringing the story to the front. The tension, the moods and the aggression which permeate these songs are palpable and very real, and make you feel like you’re truly on a doomed mission, surfing the storm waves in search of the mythical monster whale, no holds barred until you kill it or fucken drown in the attempt. Hell, some passages give me visions of that unsettling darkness of the sea at night, there’s few things more primitive than it, which can make you feel that atavistic fear of nature and it’s majesty more intensely.
“The Call of the Wretched Sea” is meant to be absorbed as a whole, since the songs flow so naturally into each other it’s not difficult to lose sense of time and place. The opener “Below the Sun” is an excellent funeral doom song: a malignant, ethereal intro punctuated by unnatural sounds, followed by a monstrous main riff around which the song revolves, with slow pounding drums, crashing cymbals and ferociously deep growls. Suddenly, it picks up a bit of speed and launches onto a mid-tempo death passage, and then back to dirge-like, funeral pace, with some beautiful melodies for the deceptively upbeat finale. “The Pacific” is just as majestic and dark as the ocean that inspires it. “Old Thunder” sports a magnificent opening lead that comes to a standstill, then morphs into an overpowering crusher of a song, with some inspired clean chants, monstrous chugging riffs and then turns back to the opening riff with escalating drum patterns to end it on a high.
After a short instrumental track, the second part of the album kickstarts with “The Sermon”, which reminds me of early My Dying Bride’s work. The drums take command with a double bass slow run over a drawn out, nostalgic riff, coming to a midsection that throws at us fitting storm sounds and spoken word samples from an old “Moby Dick” movie over bass and keyboards, to abruptly end when out of nothing a guttural grunt and pounding riff just fucken jump at you, to finally evolve into another brutal finish. Damn excellent, I must say! “The Hunt” is another great number, with the coldest atmosphere of the whole record, and “Ahab’s Oath” finishes on a grand note, with some truly chilling melodies, a majestic track that works itself into a dark, emotional crescendo that speaks of unhappy endings.
I fully recommend “The Call of the Wretched Sea” without a shadow of a doubt, as both one of last year’s best albums (that went partially unnoticed except for fans of this genre), and one of the very best records funeral doom has to offer. If you don’t get it after listening to this record, you might as well give up, doom is not yer thing. For those who dig this type of music, well, you probably have it already, so fucken enjoy it!
9 gutted whale funerals out of 10.
- Information
- Released: 2006
- Label: Napalm Records
- Website: www.ahab-doom.de
- Band
- Stephan Adolph: bass, guitars, vocals
- Daniel Droste: vocals, guitars, keyboards
- Chris R. Hector: guitars
- Cornelius Althammer: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. Below the Sun
- 02. The Pacific
- 03. Old Thunder
- 04. Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales
- 05. The Sermon
- 06. The Hunt
- 07. Ahab’s Oath