Yarr, can a pirate get no minutes rest ‘round here? No sooner had I laid back in my deckchair and pulled open today’s edition of Plank-Walkers’ Times did that blasted carrier seagull return with yet more loot. Aye, what do we have here, but the debut album from Skull Branded Pirates; those boys I sure do remember from days of yore. My fine crew did pull up on the shore of a little known isle of Huddersfield where there be an inn, with a lusty bar wench I do recall, and these young scallywags be wreaking havoc on the local boozers; rapin’, pillagin’ and recountin’ tales of their high sea escapades. Our swords have fair crossed since that eve, many a drunken evening spent in taverns swigging me ale to their fine sea shanties. Always they did put on a real fine show, and their songs would have me slurring along to the choruses, along with the other drunken louts at the inn post-lock in.
It warms me blackened heart to see this album finally come to fruition, and now I can listen to all me favourite sea shanties while plundering away on the high seas whether waters be rough or calm. Cap’n one ayed [sic] Wilson and his hearty crew of brigands always had the intestinal fortitude required to sail across the seas in search of adventure, and never backed away from an opportunity to recount the tale down to every last cutlass. Alas, all that salt water they be drinking can do strange things to a sailor; I should know! The time I was caught cavorting with what I believed to be a fair and lusty maiden, turned out to be…yarr, yer get the picture ye scurvy dog! It’s a lonely life out here on the ocean, y’know?
I digress (that’s the salt water to fault again), and as I was trying to say, these pirates captured a sailor aboard a foreign vessel (Bradford, okay? Foreign enough!); her name is the SS Conquest Of Steel, cap’n of the ship, Dan Durrant. By the point of the blade he was commanded to join in vocal duties on ‘Hempen Jig’ which lives up to its namesake working the crew into a riotous jig up on deck. This is a new one to these ears, unlike ‘The Legend Of Salty Jim: The Lobster King’ which is a tale been recounted in many a tavern as the Cap’n has surely memorised by now, needing not his captain’s log no more. This tale of a man-sized crustacean has long been a staple of their live set and the record would be incomplete without it, with its sing-along chorus chant and riffs that cut as rough as that rusty ol’ cutlass I found in me quarters last week.
There be a great deal of swaying aboard the vessel as the crew wage on through ‘The Stormed and Cursed Seas;’ a swashbuckling gambol through the ravenous waves posing threat to our buccaneers who face a waterlogged demise. It would seem as though Scare V Knave and Fradders the Cabin Boy nare did have more than a stack of Iron Maiden records and a bottle of rum in their cabins for company, which has rubbed off in their harmonies and gallop riffage. After rum be spilt aboard the deck in the tumultuous storm as the rain battered the sails and one man was lost to a great wave, the Cap’n is surely glad when Davey Blast Bastard shouts out “Land Ahoy” before pulling ashore to swagger ‘Inside The Inn’ where they plan to stay until dawn, once again raping, pillaging and doing all they do best while shouting out the words “Bring a beer to me wench!” which gets the entire inn singing along to the chorus which is just a fantastic way to end the voyage.
All ye scurvy dogs better order yourselves a copy of this fine assemblage of shanties, from the website which will be delivered for a mere gold coin by carrier seagull, or from inns and taverns ‘cross the land. Alestorm better polish up their cutlasses and prepare to defend their loot before these scurvy dogs steal all they have. Yarr!
http://www.skullbrandedpirates.com
http://www.myspace.com/skullbrandedpirates
