Review from No Quarter Given pirate magazine
Steven Brown | Joshua Tree, California | 01/13/2009
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Do you love the old shanties, but are ready to hear a fresh take on them? Then set yer spyglass on "Drink & the Devil" by the jam band There Be Pirates. Each track from them is a new adventure as they vary their sound and style. These lads and lass are well steeped in the traditional shanties, Celtic music, and tavern songs, but they often don't stick with the traditional renditions. They chew them up, and spit them back up again in forms new and delicious, full of rowdy energy and new life. They renovate shanties and old songs into blues, boozy jazz, gypsy music, belly dance beats, and even latin rhythms. Great pirate party music.
Rough & gruff as a tar of old, lead male vocalist Shanghai Brown comes by it honest (if a pirate can claim such) having spent time in the Pacific Northwest waters as a shantyman. Female cabaret vocalist Bosun Ellen adds new dimensions. They are backed up by a crew of scurvy musicians on a variety of traditional instruments, including rapid-fire fiddle from Francis Gaskin.
In their "slightly re-written" version of "High Barbary" of course the pirates win. Next, just try & sit still and not polka to "New York Gals".
With just the fiddle and "at sea" sound effects, "Banshee's Whale Solo" is beautiful and haunting. Solo fiddle is featured again later in "Fiddle Aire", haunting and devilish, with the echoes of the waves beating on a cliff shore in some Celtic landscape.
"South Australia" is done in a conga style. It carries on for over seven hypnotic minutes, but if you are truly dancing in a conga line, that's what you want. ... plenty of time to haul everyone at the party into the line.
Paddy Lay Back is sung a capella, very traditional sounding. It's followed by the oh so sad & melancholy sounding "Leaving of Liverpool".
"All for me Grog" has a rinky-dink hodge-podge accompaniment (mostly harmonica and tinwhistle), sounding as if they are well into their tankards. The loud and raucous "The Bonnie Ship the Diamond" follows up. Next is the primitive beat of "Sugar in the Hold", starting out a capella, then adding just the body-rocking percussion, eventually with a didgeridoo droning in too.
For "Derelict" settle back and let yourself fall under the spell of the most unusual rendition of the "Yo ho ho and a Bottle of Rum" song I've heard. Imagine yourself in a smoky haze-filled tavern, reeking of fermentation. Performed in a boozy drunkenness, this is the gem of the album, almost 11 minutes long, with lots of dizzying fiddle rifts.
Slow and bluesy, in "Haul Away Joe" the crusty old sailor is accompanied by the creaking of the ship, the whistling wind, the lapping of the waves, and just the bass plucking out a droning harmony at first. Half way through other instruments join in one by one, still thin and light. It is very hypnotic, and lulling. Not recommended for driving to.
Many a time I've been on hand to watch as There Be Pirates got a tavern full of pirates to dance, sing, shout, & conga all night long. If you can catch them in person, by all means do so. Meanwhile, take 'em home or to yer next pirate party with their CD. With a total recording time of 69 minutes, you certainly get yer money's worth of music.
- Jamaica Rose, No Quarter Given magazine"
Track Listings (13) - Disc #1