Ahab - The Divinity of Oceans

The Divinity Of Oceans is the second album from German Funeral Doom Metal band Ahab, following their acclaimed debut album The Call Of The Wretched Sea, released in 2006. The Call Of The Wretched Sea was a concept album based on Herman Melville’s classic novel Moby Dick, and The Divinity Of Oceans follows in its wake. The album’s cover art is taken from Théodore Géricault’s famous painting of 1819, The Raft Of The Medusa. Now you may think two albums about whaling maybe stretching things a bit but at least it makes a change from the usual Doom Metal subject matter. The Divinity Of Oceans contains seven tracks taking up a hefty 67 minutes of what is rather minimalistic Funeral Doom at times but Ahab are one of the few bands that can do it and keep it interesting. The first track "Yet Another Raft Of The Medusa (Pollard's Weakness)" opens with melodic strummed guitar before launching into the trademarks of the Ahab sound. Deep guttural vocals, pondering drums, bass heavy guitars and a lead guitar playing eloquent tones of misery and woe. The riffs of Hector and Droste are as heavy and ponderously crushing as a the ocean itself, and the haunting leads are gloomy and obscure. The keyboards are kept to a subtle level and do just enough to complement the melodies. The vocal work of Daniel Droste has improved, adding some mournful clean vocal work and choruses to his Gregorian-like chants. The rhythm section of Wandernoth and Althammer is huge as always as they add layers of sound to fill out the song.

The rest of the album follows in a similar vein, no surprises there except there is a couple of moments where they mix things up a bit. "Tombstone Carousel" has a more energetic, chugging pace with double bass drum work, crushing doom riffs and even somewhat surprisingly melodic interludes. Here the band shows they have some versatility and its not all pure doom and gloom. In "O Father Sea" and "Redemption Lost", their sound has some cleaner doom moments that at times flirt with a sound of Solitude Aeturnus. The album’s title track is another multi-dimensional highlight, but the whole album maintains an impressively high standard. The album plays like a true concept album, the songs tend to flow into each other and if you are not paying attention it is easy to lose track of what song you are listening to. The songs are real long with the shortest track being 7 minutes but its somewhat more easily digestible and varied at the same time compared with their debut album but without giving up on the dark atmosphere. The music is very lyrical but unfortunately the booklet doesn't contain the lyrics but you can find the lyrics on several lyric websites. Its worth searching the words out as they are truly well written and a excellent piece of intelligent story-telling.

I think that that Ahab have released possibly the most captivating Funeral Doom Metal of 2009 and it shows some solid progression from The Call Of The Wretched Sea. This album has much more variation, such as more changes in tempo but only slightly, this album still crawls along but there is more chugging riffs and less minimalistic structures that show the band has matured considerably since their debut album and may grow to be even more intricate in years to come. Maybe the best Funeral Doom album of the year for me and i am sorry i am so late reviewing this album. 9/10



Ahab @ MySpace