“Yet for ever and for ever, to the crack of doom, the sea will insult and murder man, and pulverize the stateliest, stiffest frigate he can make; nevertheless, by the continual repetition of these very impressions, man has lost that sense of the full awfulness of the sea which aboriginally belongs to it.” – Herman Melville’s Moby Dick
In short, mankind will continually challenge the harrowing nature of the sea, only to be perpetually punted squarely in the nuts.
Regardless of what sort of symbolism Melville most wanted to get across to readers at the time – man vs. nature, man vs. himself, man vs. God, etc. – his prized tale of Cap’n Ahab and his pursuit of the albino grampus that eventually ends in utter misery is the perfect subject for a metal album. I realize it’s been touched on by a number of musical artists over the years, most notably Mastodon, but truly, is there a more fitting genre to cover such an ill-omened, ponderously heavy yarn than funeral doom? And Germany’s Ahab have answered the boatswain’s whistle…
The Call of the Wretched Sea is a cumbrously heavy record. The kind of heavy that leaves one asking, “are the members of this band actually whales?” In terms of scope, it would be best compared to the latest Catacombs in that it does not rely on dooming the listener with sadness, per say, but opts to pummel slooooowly into ruinous misery.
Daniel Droste’s vocals are deep enough to crack the enamel on your teeth, and they sound more likely to have been belched forth from Old Thunder himself, as opposed to a mere human. Nestled directly alongside his guttural growls are loads of bloody, jiggling, blubbered, fat RIFFS chopped directly off the haunch of ol’ Nessie herself, plus a killing blow delivered via the hands of the thundering rhythm of session drummer Carny Althammer, whose presence on The Call of the Wretched Sea is MASSIVE.
Ahab also show they’re unafraid to mingle styles by tossing in generous doses of quieter elements to help offset the heavier passages, giving the whole of the record a beautiful ebb and flow, very much like standing directly on the bow of The Pequod with the rest of her doomed crew. Songs such as “Below the Sun,” “The Pacific” and “Old Thunder” all rely on pepperings of melodic, often beautiful lead guitar work, with the latter opening with a particularly slow, mournful lick. The band also uses plenty of clean, often chanted vocals to break up Droste’s glottal bellows, particularly within “The Sermon,” which spotlights a quiet “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”-esque breakdown that incorporates a long sample from one of the film adaptations of this classic tale.
The last two tracks, “The Hunt” and “Ahab’s Oath,” both switch things up by adopting a strong My Dying Bride impression in the guitar tone, and both feature heavy use of pleasant, atmospheric keyboards to augment texture and ambience. The last track in particular does a fantastic job of leaving the listener feeling as if they’ve just been pulled into the blackest depths of the sea inside the belly of the beast – a fitting closer to a very impressive debut album.
2006 has been a solid year for funeral doom. With high-caliber releases from Catacombs, Doom:VS and now this, plus blackened submissions from Nortt and Elysian Blaze, one might get the exceedingly rare opportunity to see fans of the genre actually smile for a change. If you count yourself a fan of all that is plodding, crushing and punishing, do not miss The Call of the Wretched Sea.
Funeral doom perfection.
