First off, hats off to Alestorm for the whole Iron Maiden, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son homage/parody for their very own seventh album. Well played lads.

Second, this is an Alestorm album, so by now, you know what you are getting, especially as the band has really locked into a sort of pirate/party metal blend, which is perfected on Seventh Rum. With a little more metallic rum swigging shanties and jigs, and only a couple of thrashing party anthems, Alestorm knows what they are and what they are good at, and the result is yet another fun Alestorm album that’s better than 2020s Curse of the Crystal Coconut.

“Magellan’s Expedition” kicks off the album with one of the better songs the group has penned harkening back to the Captain Morgans’s Revenge and Black Sails at Midnight sound. And it ends with one of the more epic moments the band has penned featuring the Hellscore choir  (Therion, Amorphis, Scardust) closing the song out brilliantly. “The Battle of Cape Fear River” has a great sing-along chorus, again displaying what the band is best at before “Cannonball” delivers the same foul-mouthed, but fun as fuck tone as “Fucked With An Anchor” from No Grave but the Sea. 

Then we get this album’s “Tortuga”, a pop-metal romp called “P.A.R.T.Y”, which while the album’s worst song,  I just can’t get out of my head. Then the album hits a predictable flurry of fun but forgetful songs that don’t really stand out in the band’s overall discography, but on this album, certainly deliver some decent moments, notably “Magyarorszag” (Hungary), and “Return to Tortuga” with an appearance from Rumahoy’s Captain Yarface, but at least he’s not rapping this time.

That said, my personal favorite from the album is the criminally short-lived “Come to Brazil”, the spiritual successor to “Mexico” with a raucous chorus amid tales of pants-shitting and odd food choices. The album ends with part three of the “Wooden Leg” saga, a ballad featuring some guest appearances that ends the album on a bit of a down note, but hey, the third part of a trilogy is usually the worst, right?

I still struggle a bit with Elliot Vernon’s harsh vocals which have been shoehorned in for a few albums now, but these guys still consistently deliver smile-inducing pirate-y party anthems that are just damn fun.

There are some other editions of the album including a bonus acoustic version, and as with the No Grave But The Sea, there’s is a special edition of the album that is just for dogs. So there is that. YAAAAAAAAR! (WOOF?)

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