One of our favorite metal bloggers, whose base of operations happens to be in New Zealand, is Steff Metal. Every week we find unusual stuff on her site that we don’t come across anywhere else. This week she decided to create a mix-tape of her favorite pirate metal (and non-metal pirate) songs, most with video accompaniment and each with her own witty introduction.
A lot of extreme metal is angry, grim, violent, and cathartic — which is exactly why we eat it up here at NCS. Doesn’t mean it can’t be fun at the same time. In fact, we think most of the angry, grim, violent, and cathartic metal is also shitloads of fun.
But when it comes to fun, pirate metal may take the cake — as Steff Metal’s audio-video montage proves quite nicely. She’s obviously more a student of pirate metal than we are, and her collection includes some bands we’ve never heard of — but they can sure swash their buckles and haul their keels. (read on after the jump, mateys . . .)
We’re still not quite sure there’s a definitive set of criteria for classifying a band as pirate metal. According to Steff, all it really takes is to sing about pirates. Blow me down, that makes sense! On the other hand, as she notes in her post, some songs just sound “pirattey” even when you can’t understand the words (e.g., they’re in Swedish). I’ll drink to that!
So, go to Steff Metal’s site and have yourself a good yo ho ho! We recommend you first have a coupla tankards of grog before indulging, or at least a six-pack of PBR (which stands for Pirate Brain Readjustment). This pirate metal shit just sounds so much better in a drunken haze. Even better if you can lay hands on a cutlass after getting a good buzz on.
To supplement Steff’s festivities, here’s a video of “Keelhauled” by True Scottish Pirate Metal band Alestorm (pictured at the top of this post). This song was our first exposure to pirate metal, and the video is a blast to watch and listen to. I’ll excuse myself now. Gotta go find a wench to molest.