Various Artists - Skull and Bones Records – A Pirate’s Life; Label Sampler Volume One (Album)
Ahhh, label samplers. Always they hold at least one great song, at least one dodgy song, and a vast multitude of songs you can’t remember as soon as you put down the record. A Pirate’s Life is no real exception to this rule. However, being the hidden buccaneer that I am, I’ll admit the rare intriguing title did seduce me into having a close look at this one.
Skull and Bones Records is an Australian label based in Brisbane. It has quite a few upcoming Australian metal, thrash, and hardcore bands signed to it at them moment. A Pirate’s Life is a sample selection, featuring 21 tracks from 14 of its best and brightest bands. Interestingly, newcomers Gallows for Grace don’t feature on the album.
The music is all quite heavy, a mix of death metal, melodic metal, technical metal, hardcore, metalcore, screamo, and other types of the good the stuff. Most of it is rather weighty; gentle melodies and peaceful riffs are quite rare in this sampling. Perhaps the gentlest track is Denec Floruit by Perth band Art Vandelay – still far from gentle, perhaps heavy rock/punk describes them best.
The best track on the album is easily the opener, Stick To The Code by The Daylight Curse. It starts off with a dynamic guitar solo, and then kicks into the heavy stuff. It also sticks to the pirating album theme, which is handy; “Down with the ship we go!” Other notable tracks are Venom by Anime Fire for some great hooks, i d k f a by A Secret Death for a haunting breakdown, Paris, Wide On by Coma Lies and I Heart Throbsy by The Amity Affliction for some powerful metal melodies.
The album doesn’t have too many weak spots; there are a few songs that let it drop a little, mainly near the end of the album, but it is a sampler, and doubtless many listeners will like the backend of the album much more that the front half, depending on what bands and styles of music you really prefer in the metal/hardcore subsidiaries. I will, however, say that its not an album that you will spin for hours at a stretch; after a couple of hours, all the tracks do tend to blend together, since it is all cut from the same stuff; there is no single-band-keeping-single-album-varied-and-therefore-interesting sort of thing going on.
An interesting sampler indeed. Pick it up if you like supporting smaller Australian band; you might find a few worthies in here.
