Review by chrisc7249 on January 8, 2023.

Funeral doom… perhaps the genre of metal I had the hardest time fully grasping. It took me numerous albums from numerous bands, spanning over the genre's 3 decades of existence to fully start to enjoy. One of the bands that helped me get into funeral doom full time was certainly Germany's Ahab, a band that has received a ton of love from the underground metal community, particularly for this album, their debut, "The Call of the Wretched Sea," released in 2006.

The first thing that grabbed my attention about this record was the amount of sheer heaviness injected into this thing. Funeral doom is naturally heavy due to its absurdly slow pace and droning guitars, but Ahab has some seriously killer breakdowns on this thing that makes this leagues heavier than most other albums of its type. Not deathcore breakdowns, thankfully (that… might work?) but genuinely destructive death metal riffs that drag the listener into the tides of fury that then envelop your feeble body, forever to drown in the wretched sea… these are most noticeable on the tracks, "Below the Sun," "Old Thunder," and "The Sermon," which all build up to these intense moments perfectly, and release all their energy at the right time. It's impressive… I wasn't expecting something so sinister sounding in a genre as melancholic as this one.

The other thing I enjoy is Ahab's penchant for melody that is almost unmatched in this genre. The melodies on this are absolutely gorgeous, atmospheric and engaging… they're actually pretty virtuous, given the genre, and definitely set the mood for the album very well, feeling otherworldly and melancholic as one would expect from this genre. Add this to a pretty decent vocal performance and creative drumming, and Ahab sounds like they're destined for greatness in the grand scheme of extreme metal.

The only off putting thing about this record, as I find to be the case with 99% of funeral doom… it's very, very long. Individually, the songs probably add up to like an 8, maybe even a 9 out of 10, but as a full length album, the most I could give it is a 7/10. This is because, at 67 minutes long, the album tends to drone on for far too long to keep my undivided attention for the entire duration. It's beautiful music, for sure… but all of the songs follow a similar formula and have very little variation, which is all well and good when listening to a song or two, but as a complete record, it does start to lose my attention as my mind wanders off elsewhere.

Still, if you ever wanted to get into funeral doom and older records like "Stormcrowfleet," "Epistemological Despondency," and "Stream from the Heavens" are too raw, this is a very, very respectable, modernized funeral doom record that's worth a listen a few times, as it is very engaging and captivating. Those who can tolerate longer album lengths might enjoy it even more than I do. Definitely a must listen for fans of the genre, if you haven't already.

Rating: 7 out of 10