Pirate metal is a fun genre, no band within it can afford to take itself seriously. Rumahoy very much don’t, bedecked in their traditional piratical balaclavas (and new hat in the case of frontman Captain Yarrface). My first encounter with Rumahoy was when they were very amusing interview with the aforementioned gigantic singer prior to the gig set the scene before they had us all dancing jigs and warmed up for the other acts.
Two years on, and their second album beckons. Originally slated for October last year, it was shifted to July 17th for reasons known to other people but is finally steering a course over the horizon, sails billowing and cannons primed. It’s very much more of the same compared to The Triumph of Piracy and I doubt any fans will complain. It’s every bit as catchy, bouncy and funny.
Opening song “Cowboys of the Sea” is full of self-reference and playable below in their new video. It runs nicely into “Time to Party”, which is as thematically unoriginal as it is fun. Silliness hits you full in the face within seconds of “Treasure Gun” starting. This is as childish as it gets, and I really don’t care. I love it.
Finally we get to delve into the history of the irrepressible Captain Yarrface. A shy and retiring individual, it’s obviously taken a lot for him to open up as much as he has with this song, the lyrics delving deep into his psyche, the whole being some kind of catharsis. No, obviously that’s bollocks. It’s Captain Yarrface telling us why he’s such a great pirate and why Rumahoy is such a great band.
I’ll be honest, I missed the whole Harambe thing so I had to use Google-Fu to get the joke behind “Harambe the Pirate Gorilla”, but no such requirement needed for their synth-heavy Eurovision entry “Poop Deck Party”. Which features the word “poop” a lot. Which is funny. There’s a little rappy bit by someone called “Captain Chris” (Yarrface refers to him as Little Boy Bowes) who gatecrashes partway through. No idea who the hell that is, I can’t find anything on the liner notes. Probably some wannabe cabin boy. Anyway, top track on the album and the Ibiza-influenced equivalent of the last album’s wonderful “Pirateship”.
Designed to start fights, “The Beer From My Town Is Better Than Yours” allows Yaarface and crew to tell you about the beverages they’ve partaken of on their piratical adventures. Of course, I’m from Newcastle so our beer is better than yours. Or was, seeing as Newcastle Brown isn’t even bloody made there any more.
Some other pirate band had an album out recently and one of the songs was about zombies. They obviously had a sneaky listen to Time II: Party before they wrote it and ripped off “1000 Years of Dust”, a song about being captured by mummies. I mean, mummies… zombies? Yeah, there’s definitely some musical piracy going on here. I guess that’s expected in the “sailing the seas and stealing from people” industry, mind. It’s an unusual track, though – very heavy in places, a bit industrial, some epic-ness… Quite the mixture.
“Full Mast” could be a song about… Look, it is. It’s a cheap nob gag wrapped in guitars and drums. Come on, what do you expect from this lot? And there we end, barring the final song “Stolen Treasure”, which is so different to the other songs that it could almost have been written by someone else. In fact, I wonder if that wannabe cabin boy had a hand in it…?
Rumahoy have already proven to me that they can rock it live, and I can’t wait to see them play a decent set with two albums tucked into their belts alongside those dodgy flintlock pistols.
Time II: Party is out on July 17th
Rumahoy: official | facebook | twitter | instagram | youtube | bandcamp
