''Black Sails at Midnight'' is the second studio album by Scottish heavy metal band Alestorm. As with their first album, all the drums tracks were recorded by session drummer Migo Wagner but touring drummer Ian Wilson added additional percussion. The album features string and brass arrangements and folk instruments as opposed to the more heavy metal instrumentation of ''

Captain Morgan's Revenge ''Captain Morgan's Revenge'' is the debut album by the Scottish heavy metal band Alestorm, released in 2008 by Napalm Records. Drums were recorded by Migo Wagner, a session drummer, because Ian Wilson could not travel to Germany for the record ...

''. The special edition of the album included a live DVD of the band's performance at the 2008 Wacken Festival.

Track listing

Song information

"No Quarter" was previously a demo recording by Battleheart, Alestorm's name before signing with

Napalm Records Napalm Records is an Austrian independent record label focused on heavy metal and hard rock. Originally, Napalm focused on black metal bands, such as Abigor and Summoning, and folk metal bands, such as Falkenbach and Vintersorg. The label l ...

. The signing with Napalm necessitated a name change to avoid confusion with Battlelore. A part of the song contains Alestorm's rendition of the Pirates of the Caribbean theme. "Wolves of the Sea" and "Leviathan" are re-recorded tracks which previously appeared on the

Leviathan Leviathan (; he, לִוְיָתָן, ) is a sea serpent noted in theology and mythology. It is referenced in several books of the Hebrew Bible, including Psalms, the Book of Job, the Book of Isaiah, the Book of Amos, and, according to some ...

EP. "P is for Pirate" is a comedy a capella track based on the

Sesame Street ''Sesame Street'' is an American educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop (known as the Children's Television Workshop until June 2000) ...

song

C Is For Cookie "C Is For Cookie", by Joe Raposo, is a song performed by Cookie Monster (Frank Oz), a Muppet character from the preschool television series ''Sesame Street''. It was first performed in Season 3, although it had been released on ''The Muppet Alpha ...

that is only available on the iTunes version of the album. It features the band singing about how much they love being pirates and their belief that pirates are much better than ninjas. On 27 March 2009, a split album titled "Black Sails Over Europe" was released on

, which features "That Famous Ol' Spiced", "Keelhauled", and "Wolves of the Sea", alongside recordings by

Týr (; Old Norse: , ) is a god in Germanic mythology, a valorous and powerful member of the and patron of warriors and mythological heroes. In Norse mythology, which provides most of the surviving narratives about gods among the Germanic people ...

and

Heidevolk Heidevolk is a folk metal band from the Netherlands. The lyrical themes of their music are inspired by nature, the history of Gelderland, and Germanic mythology. Most of their lyrics are in Dutch; however, since their album '' Velua'', they a ...

. It was limited to 1000 copies. On 26 June 2009, a video was released for the song "Keelhauled". Alestorm's first

music video A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device ...

. The beginning of the video depicts Christopher Bowes standing up in front of the rest of the crew urging them to allow guitarist Dani Evans to be keelhauled, following a theft. He is promptly keelhauled in a rather realistic manner. As he is keelhauled scenes of the band drinking, gambling and engaging in sexual activity aboard the pirate ship are shown.

Release history

Personnel

* Christopher Bowes - vocals, keyboards,

tin whistle The tin whistle, also called the penny whistle, is a simple six-holed woodwind instrument. It is a type of fipple flute, putting it in the same class as the recorder, Native American flute, and other woodwind instruments that meet such criteria ...

* Ian Wilson - percussion,

vibraslap The vibraslap is a percussion instrument consisting of a piece of stiff wire (bent into a U-shape) connecting a wooden ball to a hollow box of wood with metal “teeth” inside. The percussionist holds the metal wire in one hand and strikes th ...

, backing vocals * Dani Evans - bass, guitars, backing vocals

Additional personnel and staff

* Justus Twele - bagpipes * Bee Bloodpunch - backing vocals * Heinrich Gimpel - bass trombone * Carsten Petersen -

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

, cornet * Tobias Hain - trumpet * Mirjam Beyer -

violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...

* Lasse Lammert - guitars, backing vocals, producer, mixing, recording * Tim Shaw - backing vocals * Brendan Casey - backing vocals * Migo Wagner - drums * James Murphy - mastering * Gordon Krei - brass arrangements * Ingo Römling - cover art

Bonus DVD - Live at Wacken 2008

*Intro (Bowes) *Over the Seas (Bowes) *The Huntmaster (Bowes) *Death Before the Mast (Bowes/Harper/McQuade) *Nancy the Tavern Wench (Bowes) *Set Sail and Conquer (Bowes/Harper) *Wenches and Mead (Bowes) *Captain Morgan's Revenge (Bowes)

Wacken 2008 line-up

*Christopher Bowes - Lead Vocals; Keyboards *Gavin Harper - Lead Guitars; Backing Vocals * Dani Evans - Bass Guitars; Backing Vocals *Alex Tabisz - Drums

Charts

References

External links

*Music video for . {{DEFAULTSORT:Black Sails At Midnight 2009 albums Alestorm albums Napalm Records albums