Ahab – The Divinity Of Oceans

Second release from the German band Ahab and I think this one will bring tide to the silent waters of the whole metal scene. Their debut album ”The Call Of The Wretched Sea” had to deal with the story of Moby Dick, this time they deal with the Essex Whaleship story. It is clear that they have some issues with the sea, they consider it something really worth mentioning and they deliver in seven songs and 67 minutes of music a tragedy whose results were devastating.

Their doom/death echoes even more catastrophic, since it has to deal with a story about the sinking of a ship, brought by a collision with a gigantic white whale. It could remind you of Mastodon’s ”Leviathan” story but this is really something else. Here we have to do with people suffering from dementia (those who lived, as many were the dead ones) and finally concluding in eating each other in order to survive. How sweet and emotional, isn’t it?

From the first moments of ”Yet Another Raft Of The Medusa (Pollard’s Weakness”, to the claustrophobic ”O Father Sea” and the highlights ”Gnawing Bones (Coffin’s Lot)” where you will feel the walls around you collapsing towards you, to the triumphant ending with ”Nickerson’s Theme”, your doom has a name and it is called Ahab. The album is creeping like a serpent behind you, ready to inject its poison in your veins when finds it proper. It is like the dead bodies of this story became zombies and they crawl towards you to seek flesh, will, sanity or whatever they lost.

This is an album for trained ears. The changes of brutal to clean vocals by Daniel Droste become nightmares, especially the brutal ones sound as if a voice coming from a tomb. This album can be the milestone for groups to follow their example and start playing like this. I am not overreacting or saying big words, it awaits with no fragments to catch you by surprise. I know that many of us like riffs, speed, even blastbeats sometimes. But this band deserves our attention.

After all, when you manage to create atmosphere like a book, when they make me feel I am sinking in a sea of corpses and I must find a way to survive, well they achieve something that others wouldn’t even dream about. I am sure that in the future, they will find a way to pass their statement more convincingly, all it needs is maybe a little shorter duration to some songs. I will listen to this many times in the future, though I’m afraid of what could happen if all these occured somewhere closer to me.