Label - Napalm Records
Release Date - 13th January 2023
Words - Tony Bliss
Plumbing the depths of their own self-styled ‘nautik doom’ for just shy of two decades, Ahab have long since established themselves as perhaps the creative force for all things aurally slow and ruinous. Following 2015’s The Boats of Glen Carrig, The Coral Tombs not only furthers the notion that these sea-faring Germans as simply twenty thousand leagues beyond their peers, but also feels as though they have utilized these eight years (certainly not ones to rush things, these lads) to percolate their signature brand of tidal terror in the nethermost reaches of the briny deep.
And so whilst every Ahab record feels like a grand statement of intent, The Coral Tombs is the sort of Kraken-like colossus that could be truly career-defining. Superficially, all the Ahab-y essentials are present and correct - the snails pace riffing, melodic lustre and rich, drifting dynamics all take centre stage - however as we descend further into the dark there is a pointed development in both atmosphere and craft. Indeed, this is hinted at from the very second we push play as ‘Prof. Arronax’ Descent Into The Vast Oceans’ erupts with a roiling wave of blast-beats, the guttural puking / panic-stricken shrieks recalling a hellish alliance between Portal’s deathly horrorshow and black metals Avante-grade outer fringes. In truth, The Coral Tombs carves out some of the most diabolically evil death-doom this side of bands debt The Call Of The Wretched Seas, particularly with the otherworldly ‘Mobilis In Mobili’ and closing cut ‘The Maelstrom’, which locks into a central groove weighty enough to split your hull and drown your crew.
Although, for all the album's dark-hearted excursions this is a journey which (as ever) revels in both the sonically enormous and dynamically delicate. ‘The Sea As A Desert’ for example is a morose and mournful crawl to the finish line, its wave-like crescendos offset with some feather-light detours all seamlessly blended to work as much as a meditative tool than a doom metal song. The title-tracks languorous guitars and bubbling pace are more akin to a graceful and melodic glide back to shore, an austere yet beautiful thing that shows Ahab at their dreamlike and contemplative best, concerned more with serene seas than storms and shipwrecks.
Therein lies the unique power of Ahab - to seemingly mutate before our very ears and render their maritime vision in shades of crushing, melancholic doom and smooth-sailing reverie. The Coral Tombs is, all at once, as vast, introspective, horrifically heavy and quietly fragile as Ahab has ever been, and best consumed in one, gluttonous whole. There was never any doubt they would meet expectations - but few could have foreseen such a potent declaration of funeral doom prowess as this. Submerge yourself.
9/10
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