Alestorm scours the seas with Black Sails at Midnight: a CD review of pirates, adventure, and ale!

Whether intentional or incidental, Scottish pirate metal seafarers Alestorm was the recipient of an amazing promotional push to create a buzz about the new album, Black Sails at Midnight.

At the beginning of the year, Napalm Records released the 4-song EP, Leviathan, which featured two brand new songs that would end up on the album (“Leviathan” and “Wolves of the Sea”). Then just prior to the band’s first North American tour this spring (dubbed Pagan Knights, alongside Tyr and Suidakra), Alestorm released the new track “Keelhauled” exclusively to their MySpace page. And shortly thereafter, Napalm released the web-order-only CD compilation Black Sails Over Europe, which was designed to promote the then forthcoming European tour of the same name. That CD featured “Wolves of the Sea”, “Keelhauled”, and another brand new track, “That Famous Ol’ Spiced”.

Finally, after all that build-up and teasing, the album is here. And how does it stack up? Well, a band like Alestorm immediately comes equipped with a mixed bag of an audience. The band has an appeal with the folk metal audience, due to Alestorm’s use of bag pipes, tin whistles, horns, and their penchant for Caroline/Georgian-styled sea shanty compositions. Then there are the people who are drawn to the pirate-theme gimmick, AKA the Pirates of the Caribbean Generation. And finally, Alestorm appeals to fans of the originators of pirate metal, Germany’s Running Wild.

An Alestorm album is like a heavy metal-themed party. Some parts people will love, and there are parts that won’t connect; but at the end, everyone will be drunk. Black Sails at Midnight emulates this to the fullest. Although it is much darker and less jovial than its 2008 predecessor, Captain Morgan’s Revenge, it does retain quite a bit of charm.

Kicking off with the Gamma Ray-like power metal anthem “The Quest”, the listener is immediately confused, as it barely resembles the Alestorm that bobbed and frolicked for the past year. Then, you are hit with the triumvirate of familiar tankard-wavers “Leviathan”, “Ol’ Spiced”, and “Keelhauled”; the latter of which can be deemed this album’s “Wenches and Mead”. Following that, you are knocked in the head with a 6.5-minute, slow tempo epic that recalls the depression and personal loss of a random seafarer, entitled “To the End of Our Days”.

This is how the album progresses, with ebbing, flowing, treading, and sloshing, as if the listener himself/herself is vicariously living the life of a seaman – good times and bad all rolled into one aural experience. One of the true highlights of the album, however is the upbeat instrumental track, “No Quarter”, in which vocalist/keyboardist Christopher Bowes absorbs and re-envisions Klaus Badelt’s main theme from Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Additionally, this track is an update on the song of the same name which originally appeared on the 2006 self-titled Battleheart demo (Alestorm's previous name).

The special edition 2-disc version of Black Sails at Midnight comes with a bit of a treat – a DVD of Alestorm’s entire performance from the 2008 Wacken Open-Air Festival. And it is shocking how many people were intimately familiar with the band’s music having been in release for less than 6 months. People were singing along to nearly every song in the set. It’s a great keepsake for anyone who has not (or has, for that matter) had the opportunity to enjoy the energy of an Alestorm show.

When all is said and done, Alestorm’s latest release might not be an instant classic, but it is nice to see a band take itself with a grain of salt (or rum, as the case may be). Most of the metal community writes them off as a talentless gimmick, but I find them fun and entertaining. And ultimately, what is music if not entertainment?

CD track listing includes: