The Giant is a continuation
of German doom band Ahab’s nautical theme. This release is a concept album
based on The Narrative of Arthur Gordon
Pym of Nantucket, the sole novel of Edgar Allan Poe. The music is somewhat
faster and more progressive in parts, but retains its crushing funeral doom
core.
The album begins with soft guitar riffs, which are then joined by
sparing drums. The laments of the echoing clean vocals are beautiful. The song
then goes into heavy territory, with sea beast growls. Clean vocals appear once
more; the two vocal styles have more equal balance on this album than on
earlier material. The reverb-laiden guitar solo has a melancholy beauty. Like
its predecessor, Further South, Aeons Elaspse also begins with quiet
guitar riffs. Whispers and growls join a guitar riff which sounds like a whale
call. A quiet interlude comes after the heaviness, with a Spanish guitar like
lead riff. The quiet riffs create images of seascapes in my mind. The clean,
chant like vocals on this track and others show Daniel Droste’s vocal
versatility. His clean vocals are emotional yet poised, and are the saving
grace of the meandering, sometimes-boring track Antarctica the Polymorphess (the latter was the only notable low
point of the album for me).
Amid the great guitar riffs and solos, the drums have a chance to
feature prominently in the songs Aeons
Elapse (a guitar fade gives way to the slow drumbeats) and Deliverance (Shouting at the Dead) (on
which the drums sound like a funeral march), and Fathoms Deep Below (slow, pounding drums add significantly to the
heaviness of the track).
The guitar work and song structures have a more progressive feel on this
album. More solos feature, as well as more changes in song dynamics. The
guitars echo with laments, create harmonies and weave like mist over the sea
(on Fathoms Deep Below). A lot of the
riffs had a post-metal feel to them. The acoustic guitar features prominently,
contributing in such a way as to meld well with the lumbering behemoths of the
heavy parts.
While some of the riffs were not as memorable as some of the earlier
material, The Giant is still a great slab of funeral doom.
Personnel: Daniel Droste – guitar, vocals, keyboards
Christian Hector – guitar
Stephan Wandernorth – bass
Cornulius Althammer – drums
Web
presence: www.ahab-doom.de
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