The Boats of The Glen Carrig
Napalm Records
28 August 2015
The German doom sailors Ahab are well known for creating their own subgenre inside the Funeral Doom Metal. The band is named after Captain Ahab, a character in the novel Moby-Dick by Herman Melville. Along with its name, the lyrics and the thematic are also inspired by Moby Dick books. Since the release of their album The Call Of the Wretched in 2006 they have succeeded in attracting and keeping the interest of different kind of audiences inside the metal scene. Through their albums they have shown us that pessimism can be really beautiful, something they confirm in their latest released album.
In The Boats Of the Glen Carrig we are sailing through Ahab’s biggest challenge in their 10 years of funeral doom’s slow-moving waves. Holding true to form of literature-based albums, the band was inspired by the novel with the same name written by Willian Hope Hodson, first published in 1907. It’s a story of psychedelic horror, full of fantastic monsters and dangerous creatures. This creates a perfect scenario for Ahab’s gloomiest album. They also incorporate clean voices which, in a genre like funeral doom, can be risky if not perfectly done. But they’ve done a marvelous work and it sounds magnificent. A clear example of this is the choice of the song The Isle as the first track of the album. We already know we are in front of the stunning desolation of the ocean and waves of melancholy, to explode afterwards with a heartbreaking force while maintaining the fluctuation between melodic paths and strength. The clean vocals are a great way to start the album, it’s very beautifully done. It gives us a glimpse of what we will hear during our whole experience, since the album takes the listener on a journey loaded with surprising twists and turns; very deep, strong, heavy but melodic at the same time.
What I enjoyed the most about this album is that inspires you to read and discover new worlds. It succeeds in expressing through the music the different atmospheres of the book, the horror of seeing strange creatures manifested in their songs. This is something I truly appreciate about some metal bands. They get you deeper into literature and open your mind to a totally new experience.
During the whole album we can appreciate the overwhelming heaviness and the flow of emotions so typical of Ahab, though we have a different proposition here with Like Read Foam (the storm) which is an actual storm of a 6 minutes track, with catchy-or we could say less intense-but not less furious riffs. And on the other hand, the following song The Weedmen is definitely a highlight since it’s their slowest and longest song, with no less than 15 minutes of deep and psychedelic riffs. It creates a disturbing atmosphere where you face monsters and an uncertain future, in which you don’t know if you’re going to live or not. It’s quite impressive how they can translate all these emotions from the book into their music. And this is, with no doubt whatsoever, their largest achievement. A song with slow mood, slow bass that keeps you up and helps you feel as if time could fly, stimulating many different emotions.
What I discovered listening to this magnificent album is that Ahab is able to immerse the listener in a sea of different emotional experiences, going from high to lows. And the novel helps to open you up to this world of sensation, wondering what you will find there and what’s going to happen next. It was a fantastic experience and very accessible to everybody, no matter what metal genre you like best. The emotions just flow through, and it has a unique melancholic charm. I would say that is a deep, dark and heavy masterpiece.
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