Not having the greatest week. I took my first sick day from work in as long as I can remember (I don’t get sick often). Worst of all, I am now on holidays and will likely be sick for at least half of it. Argh.
Did you read that last sentence as ‘argh’ or ‘arrr!’? because if it was the latter, this next review may be for you.
Disc 1692 is…Black Waters
Artist: Scimitar
Year of Release: 2010
What’s up with the Cover? A ghostly pirate ship soars through night sky. This pirate ship needs a bit more sail deployed, but I guess it is propelled by fell and unearthly magicks.
This cover always throws me because of that white dot on the centre left. It is the moon, but to me it always looks like one of those “not for resale” hole punches. Maybe a reminder that this ghostly pirate ship was not sold and returned to the manufacturer. This should make it wrong to resell it, but can you think of a more fitting thing to bootleg than a pirate ship?
How I Came To Know It: I saw Scimitar as the opening act for Alestorm back in November of 2019, aka the “before” times. To read a review of how they did, scroll down on the Alestorm review at Disc 1317. I don’t believe I purchased their album from the merch table, so probably bought a copy at the local record store in the days that followed.
How It Stacks Up: This is my only Scimitar record so it can’t stack up.
Rating: 2 stars
For those of you concerned that Alestorm has cornered the market on mixing pirate songs with heavy metal, I bring you good news in the form of “Scimitar”. Heavier, with a bit more black metal thump than Alestorm, this quartet of Victoria metalheads also loves the mix of high seas reaving and power chords.
What the specific songs are about I had a harder time with, but only because I didn’t put in the requisite number of headphones listens. I have a tough time with the gravelly death metal voice, even though I often like the sound of it. I caught phrases in songs that were very piratical, but not enough to know what was happening other than it was full of derring-do, and not a small amount of danger and violence.
Also with song titles like “Brethren of the Coast”, “Buried at Sea” and “Fireship” you get a good impression of what’s going on.
Ironically, my favourite tune was “Forest of Wolves” which is likely not about piracy or Vikings, although given they are sometimes called “wolves of the sea” maybe it is. Another tune, “Habeus Corpus” is likely not the legal concept of presenting a person who has been arrested but since I didn’t listen closely, how would I know? I kind of hope it IS about the legal concept and not just the ho hum notions of finding, you know, a body.
Topics aside, to play this style of music and have it not come out sounding like mud requires skill and precision, and Scimitar are up to the task. The tunes are fully imagined from both an arrangement and production perspective and the guitar work is precise and carries the right level of righteous urgency the style requires.
Stylistically, this is a record early in Scimitar’s career and they wear influences of many genres happily upon their puffy sleeves. I heard the melodic black metal of Amon Amarth, and on “Buried at Sea” a creepy ghostly voice that reminded me of some of my favourite Opeth songs.
Like both those bands, Scimitar has no misgivings about songs that play a little longer. “Black Waters” consists of only six songs, and five of them are well over six minutes in length. The sixth, “Mariner’s Lament” serves more as in intro piece to set mood than a fully realized song.
This does not trouble me (as an ignorer of the radio generally, the idea that songs should be a ‘manageable’ length is ludicrous to me). However, if you are going to have very long songs AND I’m not going to be able to clearly make out any advanced plot lines, then the tunes better hold my attention. In these songs there isn’t a lot of complexity going on, and while the riffs have a steady crunch to them, they repeat too often, and don’t evolve into something greater. The guitar bits don’t go anywhere after the initially establish themselves. The combined effect was that I got a bit bored, and when pirate music and high seas adventure feels boring, that’s a bad sign.
I’m tempted to keep this record just because these guys are from my home town, and I like to support local artists. But since I already bought the record and the concert ticket, I’ve done my part. I’ll pass this record along to someone who will enjoy it and play it more than I will.
Best tracks: Forest of Wolves, Habeus Corpus
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