Talk about a trip. Ahab is a name for a band that may bring a wide range of thoughts, and if I were to tell you that they were a rock band who mix up indie and progressive rock, you might go “oh, this might be something I could really enjoy.” Now let me add that within that, they’ll spew out various types of metal, including death and black metal. Now what?
The Giant is an album that will keep you guessing throughout, for when there are moments where it’ll enter a Danzig or Voi Vod vibe, but then two minutes later it becomes so disgusting and raw, it may make you open the bandage just to smell the wound so you know it’s real. It’s a 6-song album where the shortest track is just under eight minutes, and when they want to bring the listener into the aura of what they’re doing, they’ll play it out at a grinding and sludgy pace while decorating the soundscape with a lot of color and depth. It’s not heaviness for the sake of sounding this way, but when it’s done this way (and done very well, I may add), you want to be captured by the sonics and turn it up loud. Some of it even sounds like it could be extreme folk, if there was ever such a genre, or at least some of the melodies within are things some may not expect to hear in a style of music that at times sounds vulgar. Then again, a good amount of metal roots have origins in certain types of folk and classical, and Ahab graces itself in a number of different styles but still comes out sounding like eating mud.
