By Jack Rafferty
Last year was dense with great doom releases. Ahab’s The Coral Tombs was probably my favorite. When it comes to funeral doom, I’m less versed than most. I love Bell Witch, that’s for sure, but I do think that it is a subgenre that requires a lot to stand out to me. It is otherwise too drawn out and similar for me to spend time with.
Ahab does a spectacular job of staying fresh and interesting, while also never losing grasp of the atmosphere they build over tracks. What better theme to explore with the stretched-out heaviness and forlorn sound of funeral doom than the lightless, oppressive depths of the sea?
Ahab’s proclivity for including prog aspects in their sound accommodates their theme well, as there is a feeling of intrigue that courses through their obsession with the ocean and its unknowable vastness. Inspired by classic literary works such as Twenty Thousand Leagues and Moby Dick, there is a tinge of the scientific, of the yearning to know and understand this world. Coupled with the trudging melancholy and hopelessness that composes the remainder of their sound, it informs the listener of a very satisfying sonic narrative regarding the futility of human hubris when faced with something so beyond them, so alien, so unconquerable. It is the foolish inclination toward arrogance in the presence of something so dark and mighty, more mysterious than the black eternities of the cosmos, that is ultimately crushed beneath the immeasurable weight of it, crumpled by the pressure like sniveling billionaire tourists eclipsed in a dark and quiet oblivion, indifferent and colossal. This is a massive album that requires patience and attention, but it is worthy of it.
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