I'll admit, I was surprised to see an Alestorm review that wasn't from me. For a second I thought I reviewed this without realizing it. I'm not ill, nor have I been lubbing any land lately, but I wasn't entirely sure whether I wanted to engage with this album as seriously as previous ones, even though this now breaks a nine-year, four-album streak I had going.

You took the words right out of my parrot, though. My introduction to them was Captain Morgan's Revenge as well (actually at the time of Black Sails At Midnight), and although Sunset On The Golden Age is probably their best, I do believe they've lost something in that transition from "heavy metal pirates" to "we're wacky party pirates lol" (couldn't have put it better myself). I don't really share the same sense of humor, and I felt that they were funnier when that aspect was limited to the pirate gimmick itself; they openly admitted on album #3 that they were running out of ideas, so I guess they felt they had to evolve or die, and they've definitely had great successes since then, so I can't entirely fault them, but over the last decade they've drifted so far into the meme-heavy Napalm-core sound that I feel kind of left behind as someone who just wanted a pirate-themed Korpiklaani. I mean, it's been hit-and-miss, so not entirely lost on me. I really like Curse Of The Crystal Coconut, and No Grave But The Sea and Seventh Rum Of A Seventh Rum have their standouts. But over time I've found myself enjoying Alestorm in spite of the jokes instead of because of them, and sometimes the repetition of musical ideas grows wearisome.

I'm listening through for the second time now and right off I much prefer it to Seventh Rum, at least - I'm pleasantly surprised by how blatantly power metal it gets sometimes, e.g. "Hyperion Omniriff" and "The Storm", and sometimes it even dips into electronics or industrial-tinged stuff, e.g. "Killed To Death By Piracy" and "Banana". Really feels like Chris raided the ol' Gloryhammer armory here and there. Russell Allen was a surprising choice of guest vocalist, but I kind of like "Mega-Supreme Treasure of the Eternal Thunderfirst"; maybe it didn't have to be 17 minutes, but I like it a lot more than, say, "Treasure Island". Elliot Vernon has some really nice vocal parts on this album; between that and the fancy keys, this is an album where he shines.

Every now and then it does start to feel stale. Lots of the same jokes, same hooks, same basic track ideas. Lotsa rum. I actually didn't like "Mountains of the Deep" that much; it was just too stupid a song for me. And as was pointed out in the album thread, when it comes to partying in a fashion reminiscent of the year 1699, I accept only Weird Al. I can listen to only so much hot-rodded power-folk, even from one of the originators of that whole sound and scene, before I start to wish for something more serious and abrasive. Or at least something where the jokes aren't 12 feet tall and pink neon.

Still, there are some songs that I will count among their best, most obviously "The Storm"; Shiori Sasaki was great and the Nekrogoblikon cover was fun. I'll probably need to give this a few more listens to solidify my opinion. For now, I don't like it as much as I was hoping to, but I like it a lot more than I was afraid I might, so it ranks somewhere around the middle of their discography. At least I feel enthusiastic about listening to it again, which is more than I could say about Seventh Rum Of A Seventh Rum, No Grave But The Sea, or even Back Through Time, barring select tracks.

Gone are the times of Sunset where as correctly has been said it was music on the first place and humour only after. Wonder if we ever get some more epic songs like Magnetic North or 1741 Cartagena or whiskey-metallic galloping of Drink. This band know how to compose and play, but their focus is in commerce fully now.