By Albert Mansour
Although Back To The Noose is being called pirate metal, I have to say that I’ve never heard any combination like this type of thrash and death metal before. You’ll probably notice it right off the bat too. Anyway, since a lot of pirate metal is coming out these days that is really pretty unoriginal, I really liked the fact that it was a pretty different metal experience in comparison to most of the stuff that’s been given this name. In the last five years pirate metal has had a giant impact in the metal scene such as bands like Alestorm, Korpiklaani and Turisas. Honestly this is the first cd I’ve got a real good chance to listen to by Swashbuckle, a three piece band from New Jersey, but I am happy to admit they do a very good job. I was expecting a giant disappointment but sure enough this was killer album, that has great artwork to boot and some instrumental folky, acoustic tracks to offer, that’s never a bad thing. Some cool killing tracks worth mentioning here are “Cruise Ship Terror”, “No Prey No Pay” and “Spalsh-N-Thrash.” These are just a few of the twenty tracks on this album. The only thing I can complain about here is that the lyrics are on the silly side, and 95% of there songs are 2 – 3 minutes long – way too short! However, having said that, this 42 minute album went by really fast due to good pacing and it never felt dull or too unoriginal The music on this album is top notch as well, but the whole “Back to the noose” pirate concept helped a lot, plus the fact that there were some nice juicy guitar solos and guitar riffs helped even more. If you’re looking for a different type of thrash metal, this would be a great pick and definitely should be check out.
(Nuclear Blast)
8.5
