Alestorm’s pirate ship has been righted and is back on course.

For the first time ever I leave an Alestorm album not with a big grin and a desire to hoist the Jolly Roger, but actually kind of bummed.

Gloryhammer continues to brilliantly satirize power-metal genre clichés and traditions on the final album of an impressive trilogy.

If you pull your kid out of school and drive five hours to see Alestorm and Gloryhammer at a club, you may have a metal problem. It was more than worth it.

Frankly, not a lot of music has excited me through the first half of this year. That is, until Alestorm’s ‘No Grave But the Sea’ arrived.

Much like Christopher Bowes’ other band Alestorm, Gloryhammer doesn’t take its themes too seriously. The music, however, is another matter.