The Call of the Wretched Sea

I was told there were no monsters as a child, but there are. Not always in the shape we imagine them either - lurking in our wardrobes or under the beds. They can have pale skin, large soulless eyes and be warped beyond all good reason standing upright in the guise of a man. Captain Ahab maybe a fictional character but he is based very loosely on a real person - Captain George Pollard of the whale ship The Essex which is the subject matter for Ahab's second full length - The Divinity of Oceans.

If you are familiar with the film Moby Dick (and I refer to what in my opinion is the unequaled version of 1956 directed by John Huston) you may recognise the voice of Gregory Peck which adds greatly to the already omnious atmosphere created by the band. A single word that comes to mind as I listen to "The Call of the Wretched Sea" (TCOTWS) is crushing. Imagine laying in a cold sweat at night with the weight of an anvil on your chest as the world sleeps around you, and you might come close to the suffocating gravity this album inflicts.

Listening in the dark to TCOTWS I can imagine dark stormy skies heavy with rain above wind whipped white crested waves, one moment roller coaster high the next stomach churningly absent as the whaling ship "Pequod" fights valiantly in the face of such an awesome display from mother nature. As the opening track "Below the Sun" slowly builds momentum I can almost imagine myself floating serenly down into the depths accompanied by motes and the last rays of sunlight as they fragment and diffuse until I'm at last in total darkness. It's an eerie introduction, soft and melodic keyboard playing with a background noise that's very faint and sounds almost expectant before the full might of the band "Ahab" descends. Death metal vocals together with Corny Althammer's incredibly precise and very professional drumming with short buzz like guitar riffs add up to give an overall feeling of tremendous struggle in the face of adversity.

The atmosphere is astounding, "charged" and "electric" - these guys really compliment each other and the production is so crisp and clear I can almost feel sea spray stinging my face with every drum concussion and caress of a guitar string. If Esoteric and Evoken were to merge I think Ahab could well represent the sound such an intimidating union would produce. Bleak Vistae by the band Tyranny is another monolithic piece reminiscent of Ahab's debut, if even slower and even more "molasse" like.

The vocals are a very important "instrument" on TCOTWS and give a tremendous impression of foreboding and catastrophe. So anguished and tortured, I feel they're representative of a crew hard put to master such a colassal force as the unrelenting oceans. One of my favourite tracks is "Old Thunder" (track three) and at many points I can literally feel the hairs on my neck raise - this is a fight to the death make no mistake;

"Look sharp, marines!"
"Dead whale or sunk boat!"
"Hunt him 'til he spouts black blood"
"And rolls fin up!"

Brutal stuff and I often switch sympathies between hunter and hunted listening to this almost sixty eight minute slab of funeral doom. Life is hard and here is Ahab playing cold and resolute to remind us. We're given a brief respite halfway through with an instrumental "Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales" it sounds like your at the eye of the storm where all around is chaos, and for almost two minutes we're shut-off briefly from harsh reality. Soon we're up close and personal with our elusive quarry "The Sermon" and we can hear Captain Ahab shouting aloud in a movie sample for divine intervention, such is his determination in catching his nemesis. His voice is heard to boom out those classic lines;

"It's a white whale, I say".

Toward the end choir like male singing accompany the long growling and roaring death metal vocals which could almost be the shrieking wind and protesting timbers of the actual Pequod, some primal horror is rising from the depths of a mad mans subconscious waiting to be unleashed on a creature that just wants to roam the mighty oceans in peace. In the penultimate track the keyboards give an impression of urgency and renewed pace as Captain Ahab's countenance must be as black as night, I imagine a starless Cumulonimbus strewn sky hanging ominously overhead like a vast (un)? natural "Damocles" sword.

Arrows and harpoons are vicously shot into Moby Dick as our Captain declares his intention to chase him down (The Oath). Long growls and "apocalyptic" buzzing guitars send shivers through me, such hatred and vehemence that stiffles the very air can only end with the death of one of these montrous protagonists.

The band leave us finally but the Pequod sails on, off into the maelstrom chasing a demonic incarnation, and the listener is left pondering her fate.. A fate I feel sure guitarist Stephan Adolph (from Endzeit) and fellow founding members Christian Hector and Daniel Droste (from the band Midnattsol) will be revisiting in a sequel to what can only be described as a new benchmark in funeral doom.