I don't normally review bands, because my taste in music, in my old age has basically become completely un-relatable to......anyone, I've stopped trying to explain it and just started telling people I listen to Pirate Dance Folk. I listen mostly to dance, folk, and piratey forms of music (flogging molly, Alestorm, bands that sing about pirates....what?) So needless to say one of my favorite pirate bands is releasing an album, an album about PIRATES!!!!! I happened to get a early release of this album do to my status as a blogger (just kidding the whole things available on youtube) so over a week before you can own it here are my thoughts.
Now I'd like to say apparently some fans of more viking themed bands are pissed about this album, there seems to be some band drama between alestorm and a viking metal band. I know nothing about that and am commenting only on the songs. My life has enough drama without having to fill the ranks of my pirate metal with it. Pirates don't have drama they just pillage and plunder take what they can give nothing back!
So here's the track listing.
1. "Back Through Time" 5:03
2. "Shipwrecked" 3:31
3. "The Sunk'n Norwegian" 4:07
4. "Midget Saw" 3:18
5. "Buckfast Powersmash" 2:33
6. "Scraping the Barrel" 4:40
7. "Rum" 3:29
8. "Swashbuckled" 3:53
9. "Rumpelkombo" 0:06
10. "Barrett's Privateers" (Stan Rogers cover) 4:41
11. "Death Throes of the Terrorsquid" (Featuring Ken Sorceron of Abigail Williams) 7:46
12. "I Am a Cider Drinker" ( The Wurzels cover – Bonus track on LTD editions) 2:58
13. "You Are a Pirate" ( Lazy Town cover – Bonus track on LTD editions) 1:33
now I'm not gonna go through and review every song, but this track listing has songs about battling vikings(back through time) a pirate bar in Wisconsin (Sunk'n Norwegian) sawing a midget in half (Midget Saw) a song about how they're running out of ideas so they're scrapping the bottom of the barrel (Scraping the Barrel) as well as a continuation of the stories told in the previous albums. This brings me to my first point, one of the fun things about Alestorm is that their songs take place in a universe kinda where they're characters going on these journey's. For example on the first album they have "Huntmaster" a song about a man's quest to bring beer to the people, on the second album they have "That Famous Ol' Spice" which makes reference to the huntmaster. "Over The Seas" off the first album, has a man selling them a map, later in the same album the same man is mentioned in "Nancy the Tavern Wench." this doesn't really add to the enjoyment of the music at all but when you're a big dork and you notice these things it's fun. This album kinda makes reference to a song from the second album "Leviathan" in "Death throes of the Terror Squid" after the events of Leviathan take place the Leviathan returns and the pirates once again have to set off on a quest to defeat the leviathan. The battle against vikings is also a continuation of the adventures from the last album and ties in to this song as well. I like that, most people I feel won't care but they've been on an exciting adventure those pirates.
Nextly, I'd say while I don't feel this song had any songs better than Leviathan or Pirate song from the last album, I will say it's a more consistent effort and the album was more sea shanty than metal. It's still very metal, don't get me wrong but the other albums have songs like "black Sails at Midnight" which doesn't have as much Keytar as I'd like, this one makes great use of the keytar(a true pirate instrument).
The album's not all sunshine and rainbows, it has problems for sure. I've already said there are no songs that truly stick out like in the other two albums. But it's definitely on the better side of bad and well worth the 9 dollars it'll cost to get it off Itunes.
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