Ahab’s second full length The Divinity of Oceans is the third in their Nantucket Trilogy of musical releases based off of New England whaling narratives. The first being their long out of print EP “The Oath”, the 2006 album Call of the Wretched Sea, and now The Divinity of Oceans.

A friend of mine got me into them through their previous album based off of Moby Dick. The influence of the book over the album is such to where some of the lyrics are pulled directly from Melville’s text and essentially set to music. The album and band’s music is self-stylized “Nautical Funeral Doom Metal” which means that it’s slow and deliberate metal which rather than trying to flay the silken flesh from your alabaster bones, attempts to crush you with despair and the inevitability of life’s cold end with an obvious nautical twist to the Doom Metal genre. Musicians clearly not content to keep remaking Black Sabbath records like others in the genre.

Call of the Wretched Sea was a revelation for me. I have a tendency to avoid gimmicky music so an album based of Moby Dick performed by a German band had a bit of an uphill struggle to gain my interest. Yet the strength of lyrics and music coupled with a “hollow” production enveloped me and allowed me to feel what it would be like to be on a ship headed to an uncertain fate. Choppy riffs were interspersed with almost ambient elements that sounded as though they had been recorded beneath the sea. Even the growled vocals, an affectation I typically despise, matched the theme and tone of the project and it was as though Neptune himself were relaying the tale of the doomed sailors to you while also coupled with clean singing and what came across as chants from the ghosts of dead sailors. It was amazing and it was unique and it introduced me to the Funeral aspect of Doom metal which I hadn’t really heard before. So I eagerly anticipated this release.

The Divinity of Oceans opens in media res with the nearly thirteen minute song “Yet Another Raft of the Medusa (Pollard’s Weakness)” based on Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale ship Essex by Owen Chase, said to be the inspiration for Moby Dick, Melville having been given a copy of by the author’s son. The song is about a ship attacked by a sperm whale and the tragedies befalling the crew while ALSO drawing allusion to the famous French Romantic painting The Raft of the Medusa that depicts another nautical tragedy that also devolved into cannibalism. However, the album does not ever mention the attack explicitly devoting the whole of it to some unknown time afterwards where the crew’s fate has already seemingly been decided.

The songs then go through the mental state of what it must have been like to be on the rafts as sailors curse their fate and God and given into despair, as sailors ironically recall dark songs sung in happier days “Death to the living, Long life to the killers, Success to sailor’s wives And greasy luck to whalers” Then with what feels like an inevitability in the tale, the crews, months at sea, then resort to cannibalism.

The music for this album is amazing with riffs becoming themes that are built upon and recalled and reworked later on. As the tracks “Redemption Lost” and “Tombstone Carousal” utilize similar musical cues and structure to play against each other while also leading to the final song on the album “Nickerson’s Theme” which pulls together the various elements that had been running through the album into an excellent conclusion. There is the return of the growled vocals, but there is also a great deal more clear singing utilized as well. The music goes through slow almost ambient portions to blast beats hidden beneath the layers of guitar and bass and wails of despair.

The production and songwriting are top notch, where the previous album felt a bit hollow, this one feels full and expansive, not as though you are trapped in a ship, but rather that you are trapped on a raft with nothing but your dead companions for company and your memories of a better life as you are lost in your own mind and your own sins. This is a heady album and is worth a listen even if you do not consider yourself a metal fan.

Further Reading:
Essex (Whaleship)
Raft of the Medusa