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Genre: Celtic Pirate Punk
Rating: PG-13
Target Audience: Anyone looking for a modern Irish-punk spin on traditional and traditional-style shanties

I doubt it comes as a surprise to seasoned Bilgemunky.com readers that I have strong preferences with regards to pirate music. By and large, I want it, well, piratey. Meaning shameless, brazen, and loud. All too often sea shanties are performed in the folk-song manner of your Great Aunt Gertrude (meaning toothless and dry) – or worse yet, a kindergarten teacher just before nap-time. But it’s bands like The Dreadnoughts that show us why traditional sea shanties can still kick ass. [read more »]

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Pirates R Us
www.pirates-r-us.com

Genre: Alternative pirate carnival punk
Rating: PG
Target Audience: Just about anybody

Some albums are meant of listening, others are meant to be dissected, considered, and analyzed. But Pirates R Us’ CD, Songs of Modern Piracy, is meant for neither – it’s to be loved. True, we could discuss the lyrics – by and large these six songs are about piracy (historical), piracy (illegal filesharing), piracy (breakfast cereal icons), and Kevin Bacon. The words are generally catchy and humorous – Ballad of Captain Crunch is particularly amusing. But every time I try to listen to the lyrics, I keep getting caught up in the music of this album. The vocals and instruments all blend together into a wonderfully whimsical mix of guitars, accordians, tubas and trombones (and something called an erhu, according to the album liner.) The net result is a swaggering russiany carnival of strangely pirate songs that are an absolute joy to listen to. One of my favorite non-traditional pirate albums of all time.