Ahab (4)
The Coral Tombs

Listening notes

Ahab — the German funeral doom metal band catalogued as Ahab (4) on Discogs — released The Coral Tombs in 2023 on Napalm Records. This vinyl box set edition carries the catalog number NPR1159VINYLSC and is classified under the genres of Funeral Doom Metal and Rock.

The release is spread across multiple records, with the tracklist organized into two named sections. The first, titled "The Coral Tombs," opens with "Prof. Arronax' Descent Into The Vast Oceans" on the A-side, followed by "Colossus Of The Liquid Graves." Side B carries "Mobilis In Mobili" and "The Sea As A Desert." Moving to the second record, Side C begins with "A Coral Tomb" and continues with "Ægri Somnia," while Side D closes with "The Mælstrom." The second section of the release is titled "The Oath" and occupies a third record. Side E presents "Ahab's Oath" and "The Hunt," with Side F closing the set with "The Stream" and "Outro."

The track titles themselves are worth noting for what they suggest about the album's conceptual framing. Several draw directly from Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea — Professor Aronnax is the novel's narrator, and "Mobilis In Mobili" is the motto of Captain Nemo's submarine, the Nautilus. The band's own name references the obsessive captain from Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, a literary connection that has been a consistent part of their identity. Whether and how these thematic threads are developed across the album is a matter for listeners to assess rather than this entry to characterize.

The box set format across three records and the organizational division into two titled parts — "The Coral Tombs" and "The Oath" — indicate a work conceived with some structural ambition. Beyond what the track listing and release data confirm, this draft makes no further claims.