Alestorm at Myspace

If you haven’t heard the term “Battle Metal”, then you haven’t had the misfortune of reading Metal Hammer UK recently. After previously covering Oasis and the The Verve in the 90’s and in recent memory given My Chemical Romance and other emo bands front covers, said magazine has now decided it is “the defender of the faith of metal”. As part of this transformation, they have been promoting “battle metal” which seems to be name one can give to any bunch of keyboard wielding attention seekers in comedy costumes playing a piss poor combination of Power Metal, Folk Metal and AOR.

Alestorm are one of the only UK bands to come under this bizarre label and play something called “True Scottish Pirate Metal” that is unique though I’m not sure if it’s a good thing. All of the folk influences have been picked up second hand from mostly Finnish folk metal bands rather than drawing any influence from Scottish folk music or indeed actual folk music itself. Alestorm have two modes of operating. One as exhibited on the first few tracks of the album such as “Captain Morgan’s Revenge” and “Nancy the Tavern Wrench” is to play mid paced plodding power metal for the “randomness” crowd. These songs combine the Keyboard drenched cheese of Turisas with the faux-old world sound of the Dropkick Murphys with lyrics full of cheesy references to pirates clichés that even “Pirates of the Caribbean” would be ashamed of.

On “Death before the Mast” and “Terror on the High Seas” a different approach is taken. A fast paced punky take on traditional heavy metal is infused with some funky Janne Wirmann style synth theatrics. The high tempo and razor sharp riffs get the heart racing and on these songs the band stays the right side of cheesiness. When they try and combine this approach with the more generic Turisas-esque approach that was mentioned in the last paragraph it just doesn’t gel at all. An example of this, “Set Sail and Conquer” proves this with any momentum and excitement being drowned out in a thousand musical and lyrical clichés. It’s no surprise that the two tracks stand above the rest of the offering on this album were the most lyrically subdued.

For every “funny if you are 16 years old” line such as “I want more wrenches/more wrenches and mead” there are 4 or 5 clearly audible cringeworthy ones that not even the biggest fan of “randomness” can stomach. The most embarrassing moment is their awful power metal cover of the Scottish nationalist ditty “Flower of Scotland” which is terrible beyond words. Alestorm have the capability of being more than just another gimmick band for teenage “random metal LOL” fans, but on this album at least, there are too many lumbering cliché fests to see whether they can weather the storm when this type of metal eventually becomes unpopular.

Tuesday, August 12th, 2008 @ 9:01 am Heavy Metal
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