The Dread Crew of Oddwood - Rust & Glory (2024)

Country: USA
Style: Pirate Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 15 Mar 2024
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Wow, it's been nine years since I saw the Dread Crew of Oddwood supporting Alestorm at the late lamented Joe's Grotto. They were great that night, playing their distinctive brand of pirate metal that's entirely acoustic, and it's good to hear them again on their fifth album. The line-up is most of the same people, with only the drummer changing since that time, the current occupant of the stool being named simply Pete, an uncharacteristically banal name for a member of this band. I'm not going to see them on the current tour, supporting Týr, but my son is and I'm eager to hear how they played.

Opener Lawful Evil is exactly the sort of song they ought to play at a folk metal gig. It's up tempo, vibrant, energetic, furious even, that makes it entirely sound like metal even though it's acoustic. There's a hard edge to the instrumental midsection and just enough harsh on the vocals to do the same there without stopping the lyrics being entirely understandable. And, of course, pirates are not remotely lawful evil, unless they're privateers. That's acknowledged at the end, when a Dread Crew member points out that they're clearly chaotic evil. That's the feel this album delivers.

The good news is that most of the rest of it plays into that chaotic evil acoustic metal mindset and the result is a lot of fun. The bad news is that not all songs are created equal and there are some here that simply don't carry the punch of others, so that, while I wouldn't skip any of these on my tenth time through, a few are going to slide into the background by that point while others won't. Leather Ship is one of those. It's not a bad song and it gets a little furious as it goes, but it's not a second Lawful Evil. And it's not remotely Lost Comrades.

The Dread Crew are a fascinating band because they're not out of place rocking out at a metal gig but they also fairly perform at renaissance festivals and Lost Comrades is a shanty that is overtly designed for the latter, not because it has an inherent sing-a-long melody but because it bulks up the backing vocals so much that they're often almost duet partners, even though it's really a call and response number. Let's run through the crew. How did he die? Better him than I! On the other hand, Squall of Death features some lovely frantic drums, that make it galloping stuff perfect to stir up some serious pit action.

Oh, and if its narrative section, introduced with a heartfelt "Holy shit!" isn't enough for you to see the humour inherent in almost everything the Dread Crew do, then next up is a song called Giant Fucking Demon Crab, which is about, well, a giant fucking demon crab. Because, why not? Hey, I'm a Guy N. Smith fan. I'm inherently on board with giant fucking demon crabs, even if Cliff Davenport isn't there in the lyrics to take them down at the end until the inevitable sequel. We could adopt it as a theme tune anyway.

And that's this album in a nutshell, even though I've only talked about the first five tracks. There are a bunch of up tempo rockers. The Glass of Firewine ups the energy again, even though it's an instrumental piece, while Give Me Your Beer doubles that, with delicate picking and an earworm bridge. The chorus isn't elegant but it's as catchy as you might expect given the song's title. There are a lot of fun songs here. Is it pirate party time in Tavern Brawl? That's an overt nod to the band I first saw them supporting. Give Me Your Beer easily counts as fun and the accordion of Wolfbeard O'Brady comes to the fore in Corpse Juice Medley.

The only catch is that there are more of those less obvious numbers, none of them bad but none worthy of being listed among the songs listed within the previous paragraph. Evil Tide is pleasant enough on its own but it's inevitably subdued, even tame, after Squall of Death and Giant Fucking Demon Crab. I can see people leaping into the pit for the former and following whatever madness O'Brady raises in the latter, then heading back to the bar for this one. And there are songs that I'd say are sadly most notable for their titles, like Revenge Prawn, which is a gem of a name for a ship and a song about it, and Locomotive Death for that matter. These songs are merely there. They're not bad, because there are no bad songs here, but they're unable to live up to their titles.

And so that's the fifth album from the Dread Crew of Oddwood, no fewer than eight years after a fourth, Lawful Evil, which, I should add, did not feature a song called Lawful Evil, which opens this one instead. That may seem weird, but if Led Zeppelin and AC/DC can do it, so can the Dread Crew. After all, they're pirates, right?

Visions of Atlantis - Pirates (2022)

Country: Austria
Style: Symphonic Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 13 May 2022
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I don't know Visions of Atlantis but it looks like I should, especially as this was FolkNRock's choice for Best Symphonic Album of 2022. It's their eighth album, because they've been around for a long while, even though their line-up has changed considerably across the years since they began back in 2000, the only founder member for well over half their career being Thomas Caser on drums. It's a long album too, running almost an hour but it never outstays its welcome. It remains vibrant and upbeat throughout and it's easy to buy into that energy and keep listening.

The most symphonic track is probably Master the Hurricane, which kicks off with nautical sounding flute and the sort of brass you would hear in an actual symphony, to provide texture rather than to replace a rock instrument. Then it ramps up into metal territory with a choral backdrop and all the elements remain in place throughout the song. It's almost an action movie soundtrack with vocals and we can see the pirate ship hurling through the titular storm until it reaches the eye four and a half minutes and everything drops away for a period of beautiful calm.

If structuring a song around its subject matter like a concrete poem suggests a playfulness in the songwriting, then check out Freedom, which turns down the tempo that was maintained through the first four tracks and leaps into musical theatre. There are two vocalists in Visions of Atlantis, one male and one female, and they both sing clean. The relish that the former, Michele Guaitoli, invests in his opening lines makes it seem like he's auditioning on stage for a Broadway show. The latter, Clémentine Delauney, promptly joins him, with a little less relish but not by much, and this turns into a musical theatre duet.

With the exception of Heal the Scars, which is a straight ballad, the rest play in a more traditional vein, but without ever really losing either of those aspects. Standouts for me include the opener, Pirates Will Return, and Legion of the Seas. Both contain grandiose operatic sections like Master the Hurricane and theatrical musical theatre sections like Freedom, but feel more satisfied with a straightforward approach built on riffs and swells. During these songs, Delauney is more obvious than Guaitoli, but they're both clearly there.

Because Caser is the only founder member, they're both relatively recent additions to the band, a surprising detail because they seem utterly comfortable with each other and the musicians on the stage behind them. Delauney joined in 2013, the fifth in a line of female singers but her decade in the band is twice as long as any of the others. Guaitoli is only the fourth male singer but he joined in 2018, so is the new fish in the band. I think my favourite song for them is Darkness Inside, which sees them singing mostly together, to great effect, but with occasional diversions for both.

Everything's solid, even over almost an hour, and I should call out the band members I know about. Beyond Caser on drums, who does his job throughout whatever the tempo a particular song needs, there's Christian Douscha and Herbert Glos. I was surprised to find that there was only one guitar here, because the sound is rich enough that it feels like two. That's Douscha's work, meaning that Glos provides the bass, which is reliable and often notable, because the mix is excellent so we can follow any instrument we like.

There's certainly someone playing keyboards, though I have no idea who delivered that backdrop of texture. However, the flute and bagpipes that show up on a trio of tracks, including Master the Hurricane, come corutesy of Ben Metzner, better known as Prinz R. Hodenherz III in Feuerschwanz. I dig those folkier elements, which work well on an album themed around piracy, and wish they had been used more often. Pirates Will Return in particular seems to ache for them.

Is this the best symphonic album of the year? It's certainly a good one in a year that boasted a few such, but I'd give the edge to SheWolf, I think.

Alestorm - Seventh Rum of a Seventh Rum (2022)

Country: UK
Style: Pirate Metal
Rating: 6/10
Release Date: 24 Jun 2022
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Reviewing Alestorm albums is fast becoming pointless. This is their seventh album and, if you have heard even one of them, well, this is another one. On it, they do everything that they do as well as they did on whichever one you heard last. It's not better. It's not worse. It's not different. It makes their catalogue of songs eleven richer and that's about it. The only useful comment I could add to fans is that they don't try to vary their formula here, as they did a little last time out, on Curse of the Crystal Coconut. So, if you're a fan, you can quit reading now and return to your rum. If you've never heard of Alestorm, then read on, my friend.

Alestorm are a pirate metal band from Scotland, which means that they play a form of folk/power metal that's rooted in sea shanties and is full of hook-laden singalong songs. And they're all about pirates, because that's all that matters in the world of Alestorm. Everyone's a pirate or they don't count. And every pirate has a hook hand, a wooden leg and a fondness for rum, or they don't count either. Oh, and their lyrics, as generic as they often become, are alternately blisteringly clever and pointlessly puerile, which is something that probaby divides fans more than anything else.

For instance, this album opens up with Magellan's Expedition, where they deserve plenty of kudos for getting "proud Lusitanian shores", "the Castilian throne" and "Tierra del Fuego" into its lyrics, not to forget even managing to rhyme "Fernão Magalhães". That's ambitious and clever and it's a solid indication that these pirates aren't idiots. Another is the fact that, while they sing primarily in English, Magellan's Expedition also features a section sung in Latin; Wooden Leg (Part III) is in a combination of Spanish, Japanese and English; and Magyarország features sections in Hungarian, including a moment where they rhyme "Velence" with "Csöröge". I raise my glass in admiration!

And then there's the chorus of The Battle of Cape Fear River, in which we learn how foul mouthed Blackbeard was and, just to escalate even further, the chorus of Cannonball, which prompts a good deal of self-examination as to why we keep listening to Alestorm. Sure, they do this well, but it's an awkward business model to market your band to eight year old prepubescent boys who giggle at a mention of the C word in a song. I remember when Viz started Rude Kid and it was funny for being so irreverent and unexpected, but it did its job after one panel. Forty years on, it's just stupid.

And that means that my reaction to this album is roughly 70% enjoying Alestorm sounding exactly like Alestorm; 5% grinning at really clever bits or really cool moments that I wasn't expecting; and 25% rolling my eyes at either how juvenile a song is or how generic. As I mentioned earlier, this is a seventh album for Alestorm. How many songs are we going to get about how fantastic it is to be a pirate because you can steal stuff and get drunk in good company? If that didn't get old on side A of their debut album fourteen years ago, it got old by Side B. Another half dozen albums later and we could write some of these lyrics while they're playing the song.

If that all sounds overly critical for a band who don't take themselves remotely seriously, I should add that Alestorm still do this really well. Every song is an opportunity for a singalong and, if you happen to be drunk and in good company, all the better. If you threatened me with keelhauling if I didn't pick a highlight, I'd go with Under Blackened Banners. It's one of the most generic songs on the album lyrically, but it's particularly bouncy with particularly good hooks and it features a duel between keytar, guitar and keyboards that's a lot of fun. There's also a breakdown with a fiddle, a narrative section and some great exscalations. We can forgive generic lyrics.

If you don't like that one, well, you're out of luck then. The other ten songs aren't far off being the same thing, just not done quite as memorably. There are little touches that you might enjoy in one song or another, like the 8 bit nods in Cannonball and Come to Brazil. Maybe you'll dig P.A.R.T.Y., a song so commercially aware that it could have been a cover of a Spice Girls single with a different stylistic filter on it. And yeah, that may or may not make you want to listen to it. But, at the end of the day, this is Alestorm being Alestorm and you're either into it or not.

Alestorm - The Treasure Chest EP (2020)

Country: UK
Style: Folk/Power Metal
Rating: 6/10
Release Date: 30 Apr 2020
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Every time Alestorm put out a new record, I wonder if it's going to mark the moment when their particular shtick becomes old. I wondered that when their second album, Black Sails at Midnight, came out in 2009, because, in its way, their debut, Captain Morgan's Revenge, was a novelty record and such things are not known for lasting past their respective sell by dates. Somehow, I'm still wondering it over a decade on, but I'm still enjoying their new songs even if my eyes roll at the same time. They're not scraping the barrel yet.

This EP is a teaser for the new album, Curse of the Crystal Coconut, due out on 29th May and that title does give me pause, as do the two original songs here, both of which had previously been issued as singles. The running time nudges over twenty minutes through the inclusion of three further songs that we know, but show up in live versions from 2019, presumably from the Tilburg show that was released in full on YouTube.

The original material is interesting because it's recognisably Alestorm but isn't afraid to be a little different. Treasure Chest Party Quest is mostly what we expect: a deliberately over the top song that manages to be catchier than most pop songs. "We're only here to have fun," sings the irrepressible Christopher Bowes, "get drunk and make loads of money." However, mention of pop music is appropriate because there are clear pop sensibilities creeping into the chorus of this song and they're even more obvious on Tortuga.

That's not necessarily a bad thing and, while we've got used to metal bands covering pop songs for the sheer hell of it, it would be hilarious if a pop band in the vein of, say, the Spice Girls, recorded a pop cover of Treasure Chest Party Quest. In fact, that could be a gimmick for a bonus disc on the album, in a similar way to how No Grave But the Sea was released in a double disc edition that replaced Bowes with samples of dogs barking.

Tortuga is the more ambitious pop song and, if a parallel universe Alestorm went with that bonus disc of pop covers, this would probably be a highlight, with a boy band singing most of it and a guest rapper showing up when needed for extra texture. It feels like a rap song even during the first verse when Bowes snarls in his usual Scottish brogue, but it becomes more overt when a guest, Captain Yarrface of fellow Scottish pirate metal band Rumahoy, joins in. Yes, this is apparently a movement nowadays.

The live songs are varied. Drink and Fucked with an Anchor are as lively as they ought to be with just as much audience participation. The former is an insanely catchy singalong song that I remember being particularly infectious in a live environment. The latter, which hadn't come out last time I saw the band live, is the same to the nth. It's surely the most ridiculous accordion driven pirate metal singalong ever recorded and I would love to see Alestorm outdo that one. In between is a early classic, Nancy the Tavern Wench, but it feels a little tired here.

At the end of the day, Alestorm remain as much over the top fun as ever and I'm a little more eager to see if the new album follows suit. I will drop a point off the 7/10 I was going to go with, though, because this was released so close to the album, which will feature both new songs, which fans already have from the single releases, and the live material is previously available too. It's a bit of a cheap move but then these are pirates, right?

Ancient Hawks - White Wolf (2019)

Country: Japan
Style: Folk/Pirate Metal
Rating: 5/10
Release Date: 4 Jan 2019
Sites: Bandcamp | YouTube

One of the things I do outside of Apocalypse Later is to MC fashion shows for my better half, usually to showcase steampunk characters at conventions, and I select music for each model that fits which persona they're wearing at the time. The music of Ancient Hawks, which appears to be a single gentleman in Tokyo, would be tailor made for that sort of use. I'd suggest film soundtracks too, but this is too up front for the background need of most filmmakers.

What Ancient Hawks does is to create soundscapes, an approach that has apparently led Google to classify this as 'new age', even though it would scare the skin off your average peace loving hippie. Instead of birdsong and babbling brooks, this gentleman envisages drinking bouts and pirate battles, so this is as upbeat and in your face as Yanni isn't. You shouldn't be meditating to this music, you should be raising your drinking horn high and trying not to fall over drunk.

That engagement is the best thing about this album, the second for Ancient Hawks after last year's Leviathan. It's impossible to ignore so, if you make it through a couple of tracks, it's going to have you wide awake and either exploring the structures of the songs with your mind or whistling, swaying or tapping your feet. Maybe dancing is another purpose here, as there are plenty of pirate jigs in the mix. I might enjoy weddings that put material on like this instead of the usual Jackson 5 or Robson and Jerome.

The worst thing is that most of it sounds eerily similar. At one point, halfway in, I actually checked to make sure I didn't have the first song on repeat. Each of the ten compositions is a four minute or so slice of pipes and keyboards floating over driving guitars and rapid drums. Maybe the precise instruments vary and maybe the lead guitar solo finds a slightly different melody but it's hard to distinguish between them and I couldn't pick any one out for particular praise or condemnation. If you like one, you can't not like all the others.

If you twisted my arm and forced me to pick a favourite, I'd plump for The Cave of Wonders, because it has a bell at the beginning of it and what sounds like a smithy working away towards the end and that made it stand out. But hey, outside that, it's right back to the same frenetic folk/pirate metal instrumental that we've just heard and which we're about to hear more of. And why would the blacksmith be highlighted in The Cave of Wonders rather than Blacksmith? Answers on the back of a postcard, please.

This is one of those albums that is simply what it is. It's done well, but as Frank tells Ozzy in my favourite movie of all time, Bad Taste, "that's elevator music for headbangers". Check out any random track on Ancient Hawks's YouTube channel and you will have solid knowledge of the entire album and whether it's something you'll be into or not. Well, unless you're shooting a silent pirate movie, in which case you'll want to dive a little deeper.