Album review: Now That Is What I Call Sea Shanties Vol. 02

A refreshingly traditional collection of sea faring tunes have set sail and once on board you will be smiling and swaying with its fine sound and rollicking rhythms. This is music that will warm the soul and lift your spirits with its fun and frivolity, but it’s no novelty music, oh no it’s real music with strong worldly arrangements and a rich form of melodic storytelling, which the Wellington Sea Shanty Society have achieved so very well with this album.

As mentioned the music is truly traditional and it’s such a delightfully good and rare thing, as these days everyone seems to think you have to meld some new dub beat to everything with synthetic effects. Here the traditional sound is achieved with a predominant Piano Accordion working to the steady beat, and swaying with warm fills and trills. There are hearty backing vocals full of cheery chants and hollers, like in the marvellous Hori Waiti which will have you joining in, as you take in the very Kiwi story “across the sea”.

Many songs are great to dance to; Blood Red Roses and NZ Whales will have yer foot a tappin’ and a hand a slappin’, while All For Me Grog will take you back to the first time you learnt Drunken Sailor and will have you singing and wishing you had a jug of ale to revel in as well. There are beautiful melodies and gentler tempos as shown in lovely We’re Not In London Now and the mesmeric Dry Land.

A hearty throwback to the days of ole, the Sea Shanty sound produced by the Wellington Sea Shanty Society is for everyone, young and old, there’s no need to be on a ship, this is music that you can escape to another time and place, where you can and sail away from any anxieties and feel care free, so much so you can almost smell the salt, and the wind and the waves!