Death Came Through a Phantom Ship | Carach Angren | Story Explained
Here is my interpretation of the story behind Carach Angren’s 2010 album, Death Came Through a Phantom Ship.
** What follows is my personal interpretation of the story based on the lyrics.
This concept album is the band’s take on the maritime folktale of Flying dutchman.
Track 1) “Electronic Voice Phenomena”
Begins with a radio transmission from a tugboat. We can assume they have spotted a ghost ship.
Track 2) “The Sighting Is a Portent of Doom”
The story sets sail with the captain of this tugboat seeing a ship on his radar but his attempts to contact the vessel go unanswered until ghostly voices come through the radio.
Suddenly, a derelict black ship emerges from the mist. The ship is abandoned and fills our captain with a terrible fear. However, the ship sails past without incident, and the captain begins to wonder if he had just imagined it.
Track 3) “…and the Consequence Macabre”
When the captain arrives home, he is still haunted by the sighting of the phantom ship. He begins talking about what he saw. His tale disturbs his wife and daughter. He tries to forget about it as he goes to sleep that night, but he enters a vivid dream where a man in a black hat is beating him. The captain fights back, grabs a knife within reach, and stabs his attacker 60 times but he does not die, just laughs.
He then hears growling coming from his daughter’s room. He runs to get his shot gun and barges into her room to find—not his daughter—but a rabid beast in the shape of a hound. He shoots it twice and stabs it just before the man in the black hat appears behind him, laughing once again.
The captain wakes, thankful it was all a dream. Then he sees the blood on his hands and rolls over to find it was his wife he stabbed in the face 60 times. He runs to his daughter’s room and finds her dead, blood and shot gun blast splattered across the room. What is he to do? His wife if still miraculously alive so he puts her out of her misery and then places the barrel of the shot gun in his mouth.
Track 4) “Van der Decken’s Triumph”
We then flashback in time to see the origin story of this phantom ship. It was originally a Dutch East-India Trading Company specializing in shipping spices, opium, slaves, and whatever else can make a man rich during these times.
Here we see the ship cutting through the sea under the charge of Captain Van der Decken. He is a ruthless character motivated by greed and an obsessive need to triumph over the sea. He runs a tight ship with a loyal crew, and we see nothing unusual about the ship, yet we get the sense that the captain’s ambition will soon lead them into trouble.
Track 5) “Bloodstains on the Captain’s Log”
We then flash forward a few years, and we see how the captain’s greed and ruthlessness have cultivated his cruelty which in turn has turned him down the path of piracy. He has now become the richest, most feared pirate on the seven seas. He has become despicably evil in all he does.
Track 6) “Al betekent het mijn dood”
One Easter Sunday, a horrible storm rolls in. But Captain Van der Decken is determined to set sail despite the dangerous storm and the objections of his crew being superstitious about sailing on the holy holiday. When the crew refuses orders to sail, Captain Van der Decken grabs one of the objecting crew and stabs him through the throat while screaming the curse, “May God curse me! We will sail even if it means my death!”
Track 7) “Departure Towards a Nautical Curse”
Captain Van der Decken then throws the body of the crew member he just murdered overboard and declares they will sail around the Cape of Good Hope even if it means sailing straight through hell. The captain is completely mad, but the crew is too fearful to defy him and so they set sail.
Soon the storm rages on the high sea, ripping apart the ship and turning it back from lighting strikes, all the while the captain flings curses into the wind and rain.
When the storm finally abates, they sail on through calmer waters. However, the sun never rises, and they never find land. For months and months, they sail on through darkness, lost in an endless purgatory. The supplies dwindle, illness runs rampant, and the crew die or throw themselves over the edge one by one.
Then one day, Captain Van der Decken emerges from his cabin and slaughters the remainder of his crew. He then ties himself to the wheel and declares he will not yield.
At his words, a new storm crashes through. The main mast is struck by lighting and the shards impale the captain through the chest, effectively ending his life, but the twisted evil of his spirit lives on.
Track 8) “The Course of a Spectral Ship”
Years later, whispers of a phantom ship begin spreading. One sailor tells the tale of a recent voyage where a dark storm rolled through, in its wake appeared a demon ship. It abruptly changed course and sailed right toward them. He saw ghost at the helm, surrounded by dead bodies, with a rabid hound at his side. The phantom smiled as he steered the ship right into them. The ghostly vessel passed straight through theirs and disappeared.
Track 9) “The Shining Was a Portent of Gloom”
We then get a glimpse of Captain Van der Decken as a ghost. His tortured soul is cursed to wander forever. He is chained to the ship, sailing through darkness without land or stars to guide him through the endless void. The twisted soul of the captain continues on—death has only further twisted his ambition and thirst for blood. He sails on an endless conquest to bring death and suffering to the poor souls on any vessel he encounters.
And so goes the tale of the phantom ship the “flying dutchmen” or at least Carach Agren’s take on the old tale.