Alestorm! – No Grave But the Sea

“The alcohol is free
The party lasts all through the night
And the alcohol is free”
-Mexico

What can you say about a lyricist that rhymes “the alcohol is free” with “the alcohol is free” other than genius? Fuck you, Bob Dylan, a new master has arrived! That master is Alestorm!, a Scottish band that observed with great sorrow a vast emptiness in the realm of pirate metal and said “This shall not be! Bring my fiddle, keytar, and accordion, for tonight, we shred!”

Imagine if someone turned Pirates of the Caribbean in to a musical scored by Jorn Lande and tossed in some Amon Amarth for good measure. What you would have is Alestorm! I don’t know if the exclamation point is part of their band name and I don’t care because it bloody well belongs there. These Scottish madmen fill a hole in my heart I didn’t even know existed with song after song from the surprisingly solid No Grave but the Sea. It would be easy to read the description and write these guys off as a Steel Panther wannabe but you won’t be able to write anything after these salty shredders melt your face off with blistering solos and impossible catchy sing along choruses.

Containing a very tidy 10 songs, No Grave but the Sea is a hearty meal that is short enough to not wear out its welcome and insure you’ll be going back for more in no time. Every song tells a story. Most are profane, some hilariously so, and the lyrics are clever and knowingly silly while the songs are all played straight. More or less. What’s key is every song is FUN with a capital F and even the handful of songs that feature screaming vocals at times are still enjoyable and entertaining because the folk-metal is never glum and always energetic and rousing.

This is simply a great album that has come out of nowhere and catapulted itself to the top of my favorite albums list for 2017. More importantly, it introduced me to pirate metal and I will be forever grateful.

Enough of my yammering. Drink up me hearties, raise the black, and let’s sail in to the Alestorm! YAR!

“Plunder with thunder
Kill for the thrill
Raise up your tankards in to the sky
Pirates forever from now till we die!”
-Bar und Imbiss