Swashbuckle - Crime Always Pays... (2010)

Pull into enough ports of call and you're bound to sip at the booze cask of your dreams, or finally exchange that case of niggling scurvy for whatever genital infection you've collected a-whorin'. With the third Swashbuckle album, Crime Always Pays..., the band has finally managed to scale the mizzenmast and rope-swing across the stormin' abyss beneath to a mildly more functional vessel of entertainment. I'm not claiming that this is necessarily a good disc, mind you, but it's a better proof of concept than either of its predecessors, and for a brief moment here or there, I actually found myself biting the corner of my skeptical piece of eight, and bobbing my cutlass to the band's pompous rendering of a historical era I hold very dear, through my own studies and multiple mediums of entertainment.

Crime Always Pays... serves as a tightening of the ship's roster, and a more involved stake in high seas robbery. At 53 minutes, with only 16 tracks this time out (the least of their albums to date), they have honed in on some more ambitious compositions. You still have rampant, rum funneling exercises like "To Steal a Life" or "Power Keg", which crash forward with abandon as they weave pistols and blades through melees of faster thrash with breakdowns, gang shouts and even a 'yo ho ho' for good measure. But you're also in line for a more substantial plunder in "At the Bottom of a Glass", a nihilistic melodic death/thrasher that lyrically delivers more than one might expect, as if the band suddenly takes on this serious, thoughtful tone, which is very much unexpected, but welcome all the same. "Where Victory is Penned" is also acceptable, the band's usual mix of mosh pit violence, hardcore and death metal vocals with some rather elegant, dire melody snaking through its core.

Swashbuckle continues to incorporate the use of the traditional folk-inflected piece, and this time out, better than ever, evidenced by the lush "Of Hooks & Hornswogglers", the sad and proud escalation of "Slowly Wept the Sea", the ironically uplifting finale "Rope's End", which is naught but guitars, drums and the flavor of mood. There are still a few goofy double entendres, like "You Bring the Cannon, We'll Bring the Balls", or "Surf-N'Turf" (For Piratical Girth)", but the former is a pretty passable blitz of forward thrash, while the latter is not an entirely sucking tribute to the buffet table. I could probably have done without the Sleazy Martini-like stripper segue in "The Gallow's Pole Dancer" that leads into the breakdown, but it at least teases us with a grim humor. The material also seems to incorporate a little more genuine nautical flair here, as in "A Time of Wooden Ships & Iron Men".

You'll have to forgive me if I'm over-inflating the value here. Crime Always Pays... is hardly worth running out to purchase, and still seemingly sub-par to another band involving the rhythm section (Helcaraxë). If you seek pirate themed metal you are still best served by Running Wild's discography from about 1987-1995. But at least this effort shows some actual effort, and Swashbuckle have transcended from 'that band who write decent shanties and dress in pirate costumes but write vapid metal music' to 'that pirate thrash band with a decent lick or two'. I feel like they've a clear distance to sail before they've got evolve some fortitude beneath their belts, or some worthwhile ideas beneath the tricorne, but this is the first album which didn't smack of stale coconut on the tongue, or salt water in the lungs, and for at least a few moments, both hands clasp the helm.

Verdict: Indifference [5.5/10]

http://www.myspace.com/swashbuckle

Swashbuckle - Back to the Noose (2009)

Crewed by the Damned was a classic example of what might be seen as refractory inspiration: high seas, pirate tumescence rendered mute and unconscious by nullified writing that did not quite service its thematic folly. The jokes were not funny, and didn't even really strive to be. The concept was not novel, having been mastered in the mid-80s by a particular German band. The composition was not cut out to serve as a deckhand for mediocre 80s thrash, and not even on the level of most of the 21st century 'retro thrash' artists (though Swashbuckle's possibly unconscious NY hardcore inclinations made it a little more unique).

Alas, as happens so often in the spheres of aural metallurgy, weak music + marketable concept = score, and thus Swashbuckle would soon be flagon to flagon with hideous ear sores like the regrettable Dethklok or 3 Inches of Blood, poisoned apples in the eyes of the ironic and identity-starved high school/college stoner metal infestation who must have grown tired of photoshopping Immortal pictures and season umpteen of Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Whisked away onto the Nuclear Blast roster, the nautical thrashers were one step away from bridge duty. But let's not accuse Swashbuckle of having intentionally plotted any of this crash course, as the project was obviously out to have a bit of piss and fun, whores and rum, and can even they have known that they'd see such success with the formula? No, and in all fairness, Back to the Noose would be at least a small step up from their lamentable debut.

Once more, the Jersey crew decide to offer a lot of bang for the buck, with a total of 21 tracks, most of which are of metallic, angry thrashing nature that feels more suited to the street or mosh pit than any weathered vessel at sea. "Splash-N-Thrash", "Rounds of Rum", and "Back to the Noose" are all plank walking punishments that mark for a notable increase in intensity since the limp and listless Crewed by the Damned, surges of more technical, dense thrashing frivolity that feel like a seafaring alternative to Austrian Death Machine. The band are having a lot of fun with the lyrics, and like the Pirates of the Caribbean films, they expand upon the simple pirate backstabbing and cannon fire with more fanastical tracks like "It Came from the Deep!" and, well, a lot more about drinking. These are once more affixed with amusing traditional shanties like "Cloudy With a Chance of Piracy", "The Tradewinds", and Spanish flavored "La Leyenda", as well as a handful of tiny, thrash/core blitzes like "We Sunk Your Battleship" and "Whirlpit".

But for all the band's splashing around, for all the improvements in production, fluidity of expression, and incessant barrage of energies, nearly every track on the album fails to stick to the memory, like blank-ball firing cannons of good intentions that simply don't have the mirth and compositional value to truly absorb the listener into either the band's subject matter or the fun and irony that such a realm might unintentionally evoke. Is "Rime of the Haggard Mariner" funny? Why bother, because most of these lyrics are played all too straight, and thus a strange imbalance is manifest here that never fully commits to one side or the other. Back to the Noose is a better effort than its predecessor, but it's ultimately denigrated to Cutthroat Island status rather than The Sea Hawk; Patchy the Pirate rather than an Edward Teach or José Gasparilla.

Verdict: Fail [4.5/10]

http://www.myspace.com/swashbuckle

Swashbuckle - Crewed by the Damned (2006)

As a massive fanatic of Germany's Running Wild, the first band to become synonymous with the term 'pirate metal', I was rather put off by the new wave of artists using the same historical imagery as a gimmick to push their rather mediocre music. Of course, the two that come to mind are Alestorm and Swashbuckle, both of whom are enjoying a fair level of success these days releasing albums through prominent labels, and touring steadily. But let's be clear about something: the correlations between these artists and the German band they are so likely to draw comparisons towards are purely aesthetic. The music of Swashbuckle, in particular, has almost nothing in common with Rock'n'Rolf's 80s and 90s legacy, nor does the band benefit from the same amazing sense of time and place that Kasparek's wondrous melodic riffing inhabited on brilliant albums like Port Royal and Death or Glory.

Instead, Swashbuckle is exploring their own genuine, historical interest in the subject material, while coincidentally riding a wave of maritime marauder atavism that stems from the Pirates of the Caribbean films starring Johnny Depp, nerdy internet memes (pirates vs. ninja vs. Batman vs. T-rex vs. robots vs. whatever), 'Talk Like a Pirate Day', and other popular culture trends, not to mention the increasing commonality of traditional pirate shanty folk acts at various festivals about the world. So, to reiterate: Swashbuckle is not attempting to mimic or ride upon the sacred coattails of Running Wild, nor do the Germans own some legal claim to the subject matter. The closest thing you'll really encounter here are the lyrics, most of which feel like dumbed down approximations of "Under Jolly Roger", but not even remotely as inspirational as that classic, or others to follow like "Port Royal", "Tortuga Bay", "Lions of the Sea", etc.

No, New Jersey's Swashbuckle play some sadly sub-standard thrash with some clear nods to the 'tough guy' NYHC sect, in particular you can hear a touch of Sick of It All, Killing Time or Madball vocals and riffs in there; all bands who were themselves not averse to tossing in a good thrash rhythm when it suited their momentum. There are about 10 metal tunes on this record, seasoned by folksy little vignettes or narrative pieces that give the album a division similar to the great Nightfall in Middle-Earth by Blind Guardian, only borne of a nautical fancy rather than elves and Sauron. Almost all of the thrash tracks are immensely boring, given more to flatlined riffs and useless leads that at best provoke a brief but forgettable portion of rum swilling melodic death-thrashin' folk metal swagger ("Drink Up", "Jolly Roger"), but usually tend towards some pretty easily forgotten fare like "Welcome Aboard", "X Marks the Spot", or the titular "Crewed by the Damned", which forsakes a few positive Metallica-like charges for uninteresting death grunts and lackluster shouts from the gangplank.

The more atmospheric little guitar ditties like "Under the Black Flag", "Set Sail" and "The Wooden World" certainly summon up nostalgia for the classic pirate period, and I wouldn't be surprised if Swashbuckle wouldn't be a damn good act for a historical festival, but their metal leaves so much to be desired, rather surprising as there are several members of Helcaraxë in the ranks, a band that is an order of magnitude better than this one. Certainly, these thrash pirates created this project to have fun, and the corsair theme reeks of a genuine appeal, but it would be a lot more fun for the rest of us if they actually wrote music worth a damn, rather than placing the burden of enjoyment upon their traditional segues and stage costumes. Crewed by the Damned is a shallow and limited debut which offers no reward outside from its peppered folk partitions and a pretty cool undead sailor gracing its cover, and fails to even fly the skull 'n' crossbones at half-mast.

Verdict: Fail [3.75/10]

http://www.myspace.com/swashbuckle