RUMAHOY
- Time II: Party
Napalm Records
Look, if an artist manages to ignite a total firestorm
of polarized opinions, they’ve clearly tapped into something that refuses to be
ignored. Rumahoy’s second voyage, Time II: Party, isn't just an album; it’s a
chaotic line in the sand. On one side, you’ve got the purists ready to scuttle
the ship and bury the band in a shallow grave, and on the other, a rowdy mob of
converts hailing them as the new gods of the scene. I’m not here to play diplomat
or suggest that the truth lies in some lukewarm middle ground. After subjecting
my eardrums to this madness on a loop, I’m raising a glass with the lunatics. I
love this record. It is a glorious, middle-finger-waving explosion of absurdity
that takes the concept of "Pirate Metal" and pushes it off the plank
into uncharted, psychedelic waters.
The foundation of their sound is a relentless,
high-octane mix of Power Metal and hyperactive Folk melodies, but what makes it
"gonzo" is their total lack of restraint. They treat musical
boundaries like suggestion boxes at a dive bar—completely ignored. You’ll be
galloping along to a double-kick drum beat only to be blindsided by a sudden
rap break or a synth-heavy dance passage that feels like it was ripped from a
90s Eurodance club. The production is thick and boisterous, layering
accordion-heavy sea shanty hooks over chugging, down-tuned riffs that hit like
a cannonball to the chest. It’s all designed to glorify the metal pirate
lifestyle through a lens of pure, unadulterated self-parody. They aren't just
playing the genre; they are wearing it like a stolen neon coat, mocking the
self-seriousness of the scene while outplaying half the bands in it.
The elephant in the room—or rather, the Alestorm in
the room—is obvious, but Rumahoy isn't just a carbon copy. There is a
surprising depth of technicality hidden beneath the rum-soaked lyrics. The
guitar solos are genuinely impressive, slicing through the seafaring chaos with
a precision that suggests these guys spend as much time practicing scales as
they do raiding imaginary ports. On "1000 Years of Dust," they even
pivot into a grand, mid-tempo stomp that captures that specific, anthemic
Sabaton grit, proving they can handle "epic" just as well as
"ridiculous." And before you can point a finger and cry plagiarism,
they look you dead in the eye and sing about how they’d rather steal a hit than
write a boring original one. It’s a brilliant, self-aware defense mechanism
that makes them practically bulletproof.
When I put this album on, I don't just listen to it
once; I end up spinning it twice back-to-back just to process the sheer
audacity of it all. From the galloping madness of "Cowboys of the
Sea" to the bizarrely touching tribute of "Harambe, the Pirate
Gorilla," the energy never dips. Tracks like "The Legend of Captain
Yarrface" and "The Beer from My Town Is Better than Yours" are
destined to be drunken anthems, while "Stolen Treasure" serves as the
perfect victory lap for a band that clearly doesn't care about your rules. Time
II: Party is a loud, proud, and beautifully stupid masterpiece of modern metal,
and I wouldn't have it any other way.
Nick Parastatidis
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