Captain Ahab: Possibly The Most Ridiculous Band of the Year

There are times when your response to a song or a piece of music is just so overwhelming or stunningly out-there that you will never ever forget it, and that moment becomes reference point for you, something by which you remember all other pieces of music like it. I can pick out times the the first time I heard Dizzee Rascal's "Bonkers" and the beat kicks in after you hear "BONKERS!" come out of nowhere. Still gets me at any party. For me, that's my high point for a dance track hilariously stopping before it drops into the beat. Or the first time I listened to The Cure's album "Disintegration" and opening track "Plainsong" kicked in. Its like beautiful punch in the heart. For me, all bittersweet and heart wrenchingly beautiful music will properly, on some level, be measured against that album and that first song. It's not just when something is instantly recognsiable to you- like the riff to "Smoke on the Water"- but when you're just overwhelmed somehow by something about a piece of music and part of you just thinks "YES! I get this! I want to be part of this!"

Well, that's a lil' bit like my reaction when I first heard Captain Ahab. Except my reaction wasn't to start thrashing around on the dancefloor. Nor was it to raise my arms and cry. No.

I was wetting myself.
I was grinning like a maniac.

Captain Ahab are genuinely, mind bendinly, arse kickingly, bat crap insane. Their music (and from what I've read, their live shows) is one of the most overloaded, preposterous, over the top, actually ridiculous things I think I've come across. It all reeks of throw-in-the-kitchen-sink mentality.

But that's what's so brilliant about it! Back in April they released their second album The End of Irony, and that album title is pretty important. There's nothing ironic about these guys. It's not pretentious. They're fully aware of how ridiculous their music is, but they're not even trying to be ironic about it. If you want to open your album up with a harsh hip-hop vocal line which is then backed up by male voice choir that sounds like its comprised of dozens of monks before descending into thumping dancefloor filler full of dirty synths, which descends further into distorted screamo then you frigging do it! I'm talking about album opener "Acting Hard" and that really is just the beginning.

The album takes in spoken word mixed with creepy electro and melodramatic hospital-drama theme tune piano and piercing dance beats ("I Don't Have a Dick"). Punk rock vocals slapped over dirty, thumping synths and ambient trance breaks before flowering into almost Pendulum like drum'n'bass ("Death to False Techno") and heavy metal power riffs lashed with swirling electronic sounds reminiscent of the Doctor Who theme tune which all back up an absurdly epic male baritone and that monkish choir I mentioned earlier, in a track that sounds like something from Genghis Khan: A Rock Musical, before dropping into the obligatory fat, wobbly dub bass breakdown. And a brass section ("The Calm Before The Sword").

This last track is the one I've got a link for, from one of my favourite blogs- Get Off the Coast. Download it and bask in the ridiculousness. If you don't like it then genuinely try other stuff from the album, the only common theme is being as absurd and inhibition free as possible. Enjoy! Link below:

P.S- play it loud.
Very loud.

The Calm Before the Sword: http://getoffthecoast.blogspot.com/2010/06/calm-before-sword.html

Captain Ahab - I Don't Have a Dick LIVE @ the Smell from Captain Ahab on Vimeo.